Pennsylvania has the second-highest supervised hour requirement in the country: 65 hours total, with 10 at night and 5 in bad weather. The road test is administered by PennDOT. You need to submit Form DL-180TD (Supervised Driving Program) before you can schedule it.

How Pennsylvania scores the test

Pennsylvania uses a points-based scoring system. Different errors carry different point values. Accumulating 18 or more points is an automatic failure. Some errors are also immediate disqualifiers regardless of point total.

Automatic disqualifiers:

Striking an object or another vehicle
Causing the examiner to grab the wheel or intervene
Driving on the wrong side of the road
Refusing to follow examiner instructions

What the test covers

Starting and stopping
Straight-line backing
Parallel parking (required)
Turnabout or three-point turn
Intersection navigation
Lane changes
Speed management
Following distance
Traffic checks

Parallel parking is required in Pennsylvania. You’ll park between two markers or cones on the right side of the road. Get comfortable with it before test day.

What gets people failed

Not stopping fully at stop signs. Pennsylvania examiners are consistent about this. A slow roll is a deduction. If you do it twice, you’ll likely hit the point limit.

Parallel parking errors. Hitting cones, jumping the curb, or ending up too far from the curb are common. You don’t need a perfect park — you need to execute it cleanly and safely within a reasonable number of attempts.

Improper lane changes. Signal, check mirror, check blind spot, then move. Skipping the blind spot check is one of the most common deductions in Pennsylvania.

Turns into the wrong lane. Left turns should end in the left lane. Right turns should end in the right lane. Drifting into the center after a turn is a consistent point loss.

Speed in residential areas. Pennsylvania residential default is 25 mph. Going 30 is natural — and it costs you on the test.

The DL-180TD form

Before your road test, you need to complete PennDOT’s Supervised Driving Program and submit Form DL-180TD. This form documents your 65 hours. It must show the 10 night hours and 5 bad weather hours as separate categories. If the form doesn’t show the correct split, the licensing center won’t process it.

Get this form from PennDOT’s website or any Driver License Center. Fill it out carefully.

Before the test

Bring:

Valid learner’s permit
Completed DL-180TD form showing 65 hours (10 night, 5 bad weather)
Vehicle registration and current insurance
Parent or guardian if under 18

Getting the bad weather hours

5 hours of bad weather driving is a Pennsylvania-specific requirement that trips up families who wait. Light rain counts. A drizzly afternoon counts. You don’t need a storm — just actual precipitation or fog or snow conditions. Log these separately from the start and don’t leave them all for February.

Tracking your 65 hours

65 hours is a lot. Pennsylvania’s night definition is sunset to sunrise, which changes daily. The bad weather requirement is separate. Keeping accurate records across all three categories — day, night, weather — over 6 months on paper is where families lose track.

Moda tracks all three automatically. Night hours use your location’s actual sunset time. Bad weather sessions can be noted in the app. The exported log shows the correct splits for the DL-180TD. Download on the App Store

Full Pennsylvania permit requirements: Pennsylvania permit hours

Stop manually tracking hours. Moda logs driving automatically.

Auto-detects night driving, exports DMV forms, and syncs across family phones.