No clutch, no stalling. Now here are the nine things nobody teaches you about driving an automatic.

Search the RSA's marking guidelines, the document that tells testers what to mark, for the word "automatic" and it turns up in three places. One is the contents page. One is a line inside the handbrake bullets. The third is a section headed Automatic Transmission, 136 words long, almost entirely about which foot brakes. Nothing on the gear selector, kick-down, Park, descents or creep.

Everything else is marked under the same headings as a manual:

"An applicant should make proper use of the: accelerator, clutch, gears, footbrake, handbrake, steering, and secondary controls or a fault may be recorded for 'Vehicle Controls' as appropriate."

"Accelerator: not applied/used properly or at the correct time, or excessive use for the conditions."
"Footbrake: non application of the footbrake, unnecessarily sharp application, or late application for the circumstances." RSA Driver Tester Marking Guidelines, Vehicle Controls, p.15

Two items drop out of scope in an automatic, clutch and gears. The other five stay in full, and the examples sting: "excessive use for the conditions" is the kick-down problem in five words, "late application for the circumstances" is the late-braking habit in six.

Transmission barely features in the paperwork either. During the greeting the tester is told not to raise it at all ("Driver Testers must not request the registration number nor if the vehicle is Manual or Automatic at this point"); it is recorded later, out at the car, where the tester notes the registration and the transmission type on the tablet. So you sit the same test as everybody else with less written guidance than anybody else. For the grades, see how driving test faults are graded.

Here is that one-paragraph rulebook in full.

"On a vehicle with Automatic Transmission the right foot must be used for braking in normal driving, however use of the left foot is acceptable for braking whilst manoeuvering slowly in confined areas i.e. Turnabout/Reverse/Parking if done competently.

Where an applicant is using the left foot for braking, they should be advised that this is not acceptable and that the right foot must be used. If the applicant insists or continues using the left foot for braking the tester should return to the test Centre. A non-conducted report sheet should be completed and issued. (NG)

If the applicant changes to braking with the right foot but is not done competently the appropriate faults should be recorded. IF there is a Health and Safety risk then the test should be curtailed and a fail curtailed result issued." RSA Driver Tester Marking Guidelines, Automatic Transmission, p.20. The RSA's own spelling of "manoeuvering" preserved.

• Normal driving: right foot brakes. Not "preferably". Must.
• Slow manoeuvring in confined areas: left foot acceptable in the three places named, and only if done competently.
• Left foot anywhere else: the tester tells you to stop.
• If you insist or carry on: back to the test centre, non-conducted report sheet, coded NG.
• If you switch but do it badly: faults recorded, and if it creates a health and safety risk the test is curtailed and you get a fail curtailed result.

There is no good outcome once the tester has had to say something. Complying badly still costs you; not complying costs the whole test. Refusing a manoeuvre ends a test the same way, with the same code.

Being honest about the queue. We will not tell you flatly that you lose your place, because the documents do not say that cleanly. The left-foot paragraph says you reapply. Elsewhere the Standard Procedures say "where a test has been abandoned (other than due to a vehicle breakdown), the applicant does not need to reapply. They will automatically rejoin the queue at the point they were at when the original booking was made." Nothing defines whether a left-foot non-conducted test counts as abandoned. Ask the RSA rather than trusting anyone's guess, including ours.

The mechanical case for the right foot holds up. One foot can only be on one pedal, which makes it impossible to hold the accelerator down while braking, and that is the failure two-footed drivers fall into under pressure. A left foot trained to brake is also a left foot trained to stamp, and in a manual the pedal in that position is the clutch.

Same technique, different border

This is a marking policy, not a law of physics, and Ireland's version is stricter than the neighbours'. That matters, because most automatic-driving content a learner finds online is British.

Both regulators would rather you used your right foot. Only one ends the test over it. A UK instructor saying "examiners don't mark left-foot braking" may be quoting their own rulebook accurately and still describing something that will terminate your Irish test.

Every automatic shares the same core: P, R, N and D, with D handling all the forward ratios by itself. The optional modes bolted on top are shift-point settings. They alter when the box changes gear, not how much power the engine makes, which has a consequence nobody mentions: change when the box shifts and you change your engine braking as well as your acceleration.

The guidance in Roadcraft, the UK police driver's handbook, is unfussy: choose the mode that suits the journey, change it if the journey changes, but do not sit there fiddling, because more sophisticated boxes need less input from you, not more. Some boxes also adapt to how you drive them, so there is a lag before the shift behaviour catches up when you change style mid-journey. Nothing in that paragraph is Irish law or an RSA requirement; we use the book for technique only, and we say so again wherever it comes up.

Kick-down is activated by pressing the accelerator firmly to the floor, and on some systems it has to be a rapid movement. It overrides whatever gear the box has chosen and drops down for a burst of acceleration. Learners find it by accident, usually in a junction, usually once.

The problem is the shape of it: a pause while the box changes down, then the surge. You are stationary at a junction, watching a gap, committing. The pause lands while you are pulling out; the surge lands once you are already moving. Roadcraft's line is unusually blunt for a police manual: think carefully before using kick-down, and never use it in a confined situation.

Hesitating does not save you either. A surge reads as Speed, or as Right of Way if somebody else has to alter their speed or direction, but the RSA names these as Progress faults:

"Stopping 'short' at a junction for no good reason."
"Where an applicant does not avail of an acceptable gap in traffic to proceed." RSA Driver Tester Marking Guidelines, Progress fault examples, p.13

So the answer to a tight gap is earlier throttle, not harder throttle: get the car rolling before you need the speed, then squeeze progressively. The detail Roadcraft supplies and most instruction does not is that a very small change in accelerator pressure will often change which gear the box picks, so you can persuade it into a lower ratio without demanding a downshift, getting the pull without the lag. Boxes differ enormously in how they answer that, so try the kick-down deliberately, early, somewhere safe, as Roadcraft advises for any new automatic. Our page on acceleration sense is the companion piece.

The pedal stops the car. The parking brake keeps it stopped. Park is a mechanical lock. Automatic drivers blur all three. Here are all four handbrake faults, verbatim:

"Not applied as appropriate on an incline/decline."
"Not applying the handbrake when stopped for a period of time. (only where there are consequences i.e. vehicle rolling back/forward)."
"Being applied before the vehicle has come to a halt, or inadequate application, or attempting to drive while the handbrake is still engaged."
"Not applying the handbrake at the end of the test. On hill start, vehicle must be secured with its Parking / Hand brake, i.e. manual or electronic brake whichever is fitted. (See Automatic transmission section also p.)" RSA Driver Tester Marking Guidelines, Handbrake fault examples, p.15. The bracketed cross-reference is truncated in the RSA's own PDF, with no page number given. We have left it as printed.

The nuance in your favour. Not applying it when stopped for a period is a fault only where there are consequences, which the RSA defines as the car rolling. A short footbrake hold at lights, on the flat, with the car going nowhere, is not marked as such, and Roadcraft takes the same line for experienced drivers. The RSA marks the rolling, not the ritual.

The ones that always bite. Applying it before the car has halted, common with a button that feels less physical than a lever. Inadequate application. Forgetting it at the end of the test. Driving off against it, which is an automatic-specific trap: in a manual that ends in a stall, whereas an automatic just pulls and the torque converter absorbs the protest, so nothing warns you.

Then the hill start, where the car must be secured with its parking brake, "manual or electronic brake whichever is fitted". Note what that does and does not cover: the guidelines name the parking brake, lever or button, and say nothing about auto-hold, which appears nowhere in either RSA document, so do not assume auto-hold counts as securing the vehicle. The hill test is scripted, not optional: "I want you to pull in and stop on the left/hill."

Park belongs to parking. P is a lock, not a brake. Selecting it at every red light rests the car's weight on the lock rather than the brake on any slope, and takes a hand off the job at the moment you might need to move. Systems differ, so Roadcraft's advice is to read the handbook for the car you are driving. The marking guidelines say nothing at all about Park, so nothing here is a test rule.

What matters on the day is the end-of-journey sequence: parking brake first, then Park, then switch off. That is exactly what the tester waits for, "The Driver Tester must remain in the vehicle until it has been parked, the parking brake is fully applied and the engine switched off" (the sentence continues with an exception for larger vehicles). Note what secures the car there. Not the selector.

The Alighting requirement says the ignition must be off and observations taken before opening the door, and adds: "It is also in order if the applicant engages a low gear." Text written for a manual and never rewritten; in an automatic the equivalent is Park. This article's thesis in miniature. On parking aids the guidelines are one line and absolute: "The use of 'Park Assist' is not permitted."

Finally the technical checks, where the tester may ask "how they would know if there was a fault with: (a) The footbrake or, (b) The handbrake." If your parking brake is a button you need an answer for the second half, and "I would notice the light" is not much of one. Three or more technical check questions unanswered or wrong is a grade 2 fault. Our technical checks page has the full list with model answers.

In Drive or Reverse with your foot off the accelerator, an automatic will move, steadily, at idle. That is the whole technique: let the car provide the motion, meter the speed with brake pressure, add nothing with the right foot. Instructors call it creep, and it leaves your attention free for observation and position, which is what the manoeuvres are marked on.

The RSA marks both directions of error under one word, Competently, in almost the same sentence on each manoeuvre. The reverse version adds going off course; otherwise the wording matches:

"Where an applicant hits or mounts a kerb, or goes off course, or makes inadequate progress, or uses excessive speed, or does not make proper use of the controls during the reverse manoeuvre, a fault may be recorded opposite 'Competently'." (Reverse, p.19)

"Where an applicant hits or bumps a kerb, or makes inadequate progress, or uses excessive speed, or does not make proper use of the controls, a fault may be recorded opposite 'Competently'." (Turnabout, p.19) RSA Driver Tester Marking Guidelines

Excessive speed on one side, inadequate progress on the other. Creep lives in the gap: a car that lurches because somebody touched the accelerator is marked, and a car that keeps stalling out of nervousness is marked too.

Three reassurances from the same documents that learners are routinely not told. Dry steering is fine: "A fault should not be recorded where an applicant turns the steering wheel while the vehicle is stationary (i.e. 'dry' steering)." A scrappy first shunt is not four faults, because "only one fault may be recorded under each aspect regardless of how many times a particular type of fault occurs on the Turnabout." And nerves will not end the drive, because "inadequate progress is not a reason to curtail a test."

These are also the only places on the test where your left foot is allowed on the brake, along with the parking at the end: the RSA names the Turnabout, the Reverse and Parking, and only if you are genuinely competent with it. Learn the manoeuvres right-footed anyway: the habit you build here leaks into the rest of the drive, which is where the rule bites.

Automatic drivers develop one habit on hills that manual drivers mostly do not: continuous light pressure on the brake all the way down, because there is no obvious way to hold a lower gear and the car accelerates if left alone. That habit empties the heat sink. Brembo, who make brakes for a living, describe two failures:

• Brake fading is a temporary loss of braking efficiency from overheated pads: the friction material disperses gases at high temperature, reducing the coefficient of friction. Brembo's listed symptoms are a spongy pedal that sinks further than usual, the loss of braking efficiency itself, and a pungent smell.
• Vapour lock is hydraulic: the fluid boils and forms vapour bubbles in the circuit. Brake fluid absorbs moisture, and water content lowers its boiling point, so old fluid boils sooner. Brembo's listed symptoms here are a soft pedal, longer pedal travel and reduced braking force.

Brembo's own prevention advice is to use engine braking downhill and avoid overloading the vehicle, and in an emergency to reduce speed gradually using engine braking and stop somewhere safe to let the brakes cool. Which brings us to the fact automatic drivers are almost never told: engine braking works in an automatic exactly as in a manual. Releasing the accelerator lets engine compression slow the car, and the effect is greater in a lower gear. Roadcraft states this explicitly for automatic gearboxes.

So the method is to hold a lower gear, using the manual override if the box will not do it for you, and brake on the straighter sections occasionally and significantly rather than continuously, which lets the pads cool between applications. Some automatics have a hold system that maintains a low road speed on a descent for you. The aim is speed never building in the first place.

This is the section that would actually change how you drive. Roadcraft makes an observation we have never seen in learner material anywhere: it is easy to get lax about the system of car control in an automatic, and some automatic drivers drift into losing speed late, entering bends while still reducing speed, when the slowing should have been finished earlier.

Once you see why, it is obvious. In a manual, planning a bend forces a physical act at a specific moment: you choose a gear and change into it, and to do that you must already have decided what speed you are arriving at. The automatic removes the act, and the planning quietly goes with it.

Why it matters is grip, and grip is a budget. Each tyre meets the road on a patch roughly the size of your hand, and that patch is shared between accelerating, braking and steering, so spend more of it on braking and there is less left for steering. Braking also shifts weight forward, loading the front tyres and unloading the rear, which mid-bend reduces stability and invites a skid. A car is most stable when weight is evenly distributed, the engine is just pulling, and it is going straight. A bend removes the third of those; arriving still on the brakes removes a second at the same time.

• Finish the braking before you turn in. All of it. The point at which the wheel moves is the point at which the brake pedal has already been released.
• Hold a steady speed through the bend with a gentle squeeze. Cornering forces bleed road speed off as soon as you turn in, so holding the same accelerator pressure through a bend actually means slowing down. A small increase holds speed steady. The aim is constant speed, not more speed.
• Leave the box enough time to change gear when a change will be needed. If you know one is coming, do not ask for it at the last moment.

Look at how this lands on the report sheet. There is no heading called Automatic. What there is: Position on Bends, Speed, reacting to hazards, and that footbrake bullet you have already read, "late application for the circumstances". The habit is invisible to you and fully visible to the tester. Underneath it sits Roadcraft's guiding rule: always be able to stop within the distance you can see to be clear on your own side of the road, and if that distance shortens, slow to match it. We put numbers on that on our stopping distances page.

Pass in an automatic and your licence is restricted to automatics in that category, recorded as code 78. The tester selects the automatic option on the tablet, and the Standard Procedures' result documentation checklist includes the line "Correct category recorded and Code 78 automatic (if applicable)".

Here is a finding worth reporting carefully. Across the 44 pages of the RSA's tester procedures document, the copy dated 20 February 2026, there is exactly one place where the tester is scripted to tell the candidate out loud that the licence will be restricted, and it is in the Category W tractor section: "Where the vehicle has automatic transmission, the Driver Tester must record 'automatic' (Code 78) on the tablet and tell the applicant that if they pass the test, that the licence will be limited to automatic transmission." The category B script, pages 5 to 19, contains no equivalent sentence, and the one similarly worded instruction elsewhere sits inside the truck and bus section.

So the spoken warning is written into the tractor procedure and not the car procedure. That is not evidence that testers stay silent with car candidates, and plenty will mention it. But if you assumed there is a formal moment on a car test where somebody tells you what you are signing up to, there is not one in the script.

Getting it removed. One thing is clear: you have to pass the driving test again in a manual car. The rest is muddier than the internet makes it sound. The RSA's driving-test-vehicles page says you will have to apply for a learner permit first; search results for the NDLS upgrade page describe the same requirement, a category B permit without the code 78 restriction, and add that EDT is not mandatory and the usual six-month minimum permit period does not apply. Set against that, several Irish driving-school sites say no learner permit is needed at all if you already hold a full licence.

We could not settle it. Both rsa.ie and ndls.ie refuse automated requests, so every official-sounding line above reached us through search results rather than a page we opened and read. Ring the NDLS before you plan around any of it. And if you do end up on a learner permit for the manual, remember what that means while you hold it: L plates, no motorways and no driving unaccompanied in the manual car, though your full automatic entitlement carries on unaffected.

Ask about the fee on the same call. The learner permit went from €35 to €45, so the €35 figure still circulating online, including in some search results for the NDLS page itself, is the old rate.

Will the EU abolish it? Not that anyone has announced. Directive (EU) 2025/2205 entered into force on 25 November 2025, with four years to transpose most of it and earlier deadlines of two and three years for alternatively powered vehicles and accompanied driving. The Commission's own summary of the new rules makes no mention of automatic transmission or code 78, and we did not read the directive text itself, so we will not characterise it beyond that. Our page on the EU driving licence directive and Ireland covers the rest.

Start with what is solid, the market. In 2016 Ireland registered 121,661 new manual cars against 24,989 automatics, roughly five to one. By April 2026, year to date, it was 51,138 new automatics against 13,703 manuals, and SIMI figures put manual transmission at 20.47 per cent of the new car market year to date, down over 15 per cent on 2024. Learning in an automatic is learning on what is actually being sold. Three things are much less certain.

1. Whether automatic learners end up safer drivers. The best-known study is Selander, Bolin and Falkmer, in Gerontology in 2012. It compared 31 older drivers, mean age 75.2, with 32 control drivers whose mean age was 39.2, and found the older group made significantly fewer errors in an automatic in five situations: manoeuvring while changing gear, manoeuvring while handling pedals, speed too fast for the situation, exceeding speed limits, and position when turning left.

Note how carefully the authors put their conclusion: switching to automatic transmission "may be recommended for older drivers as a means to maintain safe driving". That is a real finding from a small on-road study of 31 drivers in their seventies, and it is not a claim that automatics are safer in general. Nobody has shown anything of the kind about an eighteen-year-old in Clondalkin.

2. How many Irish tests are taken in automatics. Nobody publishes it. We looked at RSA material and at the CSO's Transport Omnibus releases and found no automatic-versus-manual split for driving tests anywhere. The confident percentages on driving-school websites carry no source, so we are not repeating them.

3. Whether any of this training reduces crash risk. This site already publishes that formal driver training has not been shown to cut crash risk, with the Cochrane review landing at a rate ratio of about 0.98: see does driver training actually work. That applies here too. What a lesson demonstrably does is make you competent in the car you actually drive and get you through a test marked against written criteria.

• Know which parking brake you have and how it behaves. Lever, button or auto-hold, and whether auto-hold keeps your brake lights on.
• Have an answer for the handbrake question. The tester may ask how you would know if the footbrake or handbrake was faulty. Three or more technical checks unanswered or wrong is a grade 2 fault.
• Right foot for all normal braking, no exceptions. Left foot only in the turnabout, reverse and parking, and only if genuinely competent. If the tester advises you and you carry on, the test ends without a result.
• Rehearse the manoeuvres on creep, with the brake metering the speed and the accelerator untouched. Use dry steering if it helps; the RSA says it is not a fault.
• Find out which modes your car has and pick one for the drive. Then leave the console alone.
• Find the manual override before you meet a long hill, not on it. Try the kick-down once, deliberately, somewhere safe and open.
• Parking brake first, then Park, then off. Never Park instead of the parking brake, and never at a red light.
• Park Assist off and unused. The guidelines are one line and absolute: it is not permitted.
• The invisible one: finish your braking before the bend, not in it. Nobody will ever tell you to do this. It is the difference between driving an automatic and being driven by one.