Edinburgh

Edinburgh asks more of a learner than almost anywhere else in Scotland. In a single lesson you can meet tram tracks on Princes Street, an active bus lane on Leith Walk, a hill start on a cobbled setted street and a five-exit roundabout at Sheriffhall. Rather than avoid that, lessons work through it in a deliberate order so nothing arrives as a surprise on test day.

Early lessons usually start in quieter residential areas — Corstorphine, Fairmilehead or Colinton — where there is space to build clutch control and observation habits without a queue of traffic behind you. As your control becomes automatic, we move into the busier arterial routes and eventually the city centre.

Most Edinburgh learners test at Currie, so the later part of your course covers those routes properly: the Lanark Road approaches, Riccarton, Baberton and the rural stretches out towards Balerno that examiners use for independent driving.