The Cockpit Drill (DSSSM): How to Set Up the Car Before You Drive

The cockpit drill is the set of checks you run every time you get in the driver’s seat, before you start the engine: Doors, Seat, Steering, Seatbelt, Mirrors – remembered as DSSSM. Work through it in that order and the car is safe, you can reach every control comfortably, and you can see all the way round. It takes under a minute once it is second nature, and it is the very first thing your instructor teaches you.

It sounds basic, and it is – but it is the foundation everything else is built on. Get your seat too far back and you cannot press the clutch flat. Get your mirrors set before your seat and you have to redo them. So on your first driving lesson we slow it right down and do it properly, then it becomes a habit you barely notice. Here is exactly how it works, why each step matters, and how the examiner expects to see it on test day.

What is the cockpit drill?

The cockpit drill is a sequence of pre-drive safety and comfort checks you carry out from the driver’s seat before starting the engine. The point is simple: make sure the doors are shut, you are seated so you can operate the pedals and wheel with full control, your seatbelt is on correctly, and your mirrors give you the best possible view. Only then do you start up and think about moving off.

The Highway Code puts the same idea into Rule 97, which says that before setting off you should make sure “your mirrors and seat are adjusted correctly to ensure comfort, full control and maximum vision,” that “head restraints are properly adjusted to reduce the risk of neck and spine injuries,” and that you “know where all the controls are and how to use them.” That last point is worth taking literally in an unfamiliar car: find the wipers, the lights and the hazard switch before you move, because the moments when you need hazard warning lights are never moments when you want to be hunting for the button. The cockpit drill is just the practical, in-the-car way of ticking every one of those boxes in a fixed order so nothing gets missed.

You will hear it called a few things – the cockpit drill, the cockpit check, the “setting up” routine, or the DSSSM drill. They all mean the same thing. Advanced-driver groups such as the Institute of Advanced Motorists use the term too, so it is a habit that stays with good drivers long after they have passed.

What is the acronym for the cockpit drill?

The acronym is DSSSM: Doors, Seat, Steering, Seatbelt, Mirrors. Five checks, three of them starting with S, which is exactly why people mix up the middle. If you struggle to hold the order, invent a silly sentence with the initials – anything memorable that sticks. The letters matter less than doing all five, every time, in a sensible order.

A quick word on wording: some instructors and some driving schools split “Seat” into a couple of sub-steps and call it a six-step drill, and a few add a “P” on the end for a final controls check or handbrake confirmation. The core five are always the same. Do not get hung up on the exact count.

What is the correct sequence of the cockpit drill?

The order runs top to bottom, outside-in: shut the car (Doors), get yourself in the right place (Seat, then Steering, then Seatbelt), then set what you see (Mirrors). The reason mirrors come last is the single most important thing to understand about the sequence – if you move your seat or backrest after setting the mirrors, the view changes and your mirror work is wrong. Set the seat first, always, then the mirrors follow.

Here is the full drill at a glance, and then each step in detail:

• D – Doors: all doors and the boot shut, warning lights off. Why it matters: a door swinging open at speed is dangerous and distracting.
• S – Seat: slide and height set so the pedals press flat with a slight knee bend. Why it matters: full pedal control, with your eyes high enough to see the road.
• S – Steering: wheel reach and height set, and the head restraint level with the top of your head. Why it matters: relaxed arms and whiplash protection (Highway Code Rule 97).
• S – Seatbelt: belt on, flat, no twists, low over the hips. Why it matters: it is a legal requirement (Highway Code Rule 99) and your main protection in a crash.
• M – Mirrors: interior and both door mirrors adjusted last. Why it matters: you get full rear vision, set after the seat so it stays accurate.

Once you have run it a handful of times it flows in about a minute. On your first attempt it can eat a decent chunk of the lesson, and that is completely normal – you are building a routine you will use for the rest of your driving life.

D – Doors

Start by making sure every door is properly closed, including the boot or tailgate. Do not just trust the dashboard light. In a car you have just climbed into, give your own door a gentle pull on the handle to feel it is on the second latch, and glance across to check the passenger door sits flush with the body. If a door is not shut, it will usually stick out slightly and you can spot it in the door mirror.

If a passenger door is open, do not lean across and swing it wildly – check it is safe, then ask whoever is in that seat to close it, or get out and shut it yourself. Modern cars show a warning symbol on the dash for an open door, and that is a useful backup, but on older or shared cars the light might not work, so the physical check wins.

Why bother? A door that pops open as you pull away is startling, blocks your mirror view, and on a busy road it is genuinely hazardous. Ten seconds now saves that.

S – Seat

Now get yourself in the right position. Press the clutch pedal (the left one) all the way to the floor with your left foot and slide the seat forward or back until you have a slight bend in your knee at full press – not a locked, straight leg, and not so close that your knee is jammed up. You need to be able to hold the clutch down comfortably for a hill start without stretching, because that pedal does a lot of fine work when you are learning; our guide to finding the biting point and mastering clutch control explains why that reach matters so much.

Then set the seat height if your car adjusts. Aim to have your eyes roughly in the middle of the windscreen, high enough to see well over the bonnet and read the road far ahead. Too low and you lose forward vision; too high and you feel perched. The seat lever is usually a bar under the front of the cushion for the slide, and a lever or wheel on the side for height – if you cannot find it, just ask.

S – Steering

With the seat sorted, set the wheel. Press yourself back into the seat and reach out: with your arms straight and wrists resting on top of the wheel, you should be able to drape them over the rim without leaning forward. That gives you a nice bend at the elbow when your hands come down to the “ten to two” or “quarter to three” driving position, so you can turn the wheel fully both ways without your arms locking out.

Many cars let you adjust the wheel for both reach and height – there is usually a lever tucked under the steering column. Set it so the wheel does not block your view of the dashboard dials. Get this right and steering itself becomes far easier, whichever method you favour – and it is worth knowing that examiners accept more than one, as we explain in push-pull steering versus rotational.

This is also the moment to set your head restraint, and it is worth doing properly. The rigid part should come up so its centre is level with the top of your head, or at least the top of your ears – never left down at neck height. Highway Code Rule 97 flags this specifically: a correctly set head restraint “reduces the risk of neck and spine injuries,” because in a rear-end shunt it stops your head snapping backwards. It is a two-second adjustment that most people never think about.

S – Seatbelt

Put your seatbelt on. Draw it across smoothly, feed it into the buckle until it clicks, and run your hand down it to make sure it lies flat with no twists. The lap section should sit low across your hips and the top of your thighs, not up across your soft stomach, and the diagonal should cross your chest and shoulder, never your neck.

Wearing it is not optional – it is the law. Highway Code Rule 99 states you MUST wear a seat belt in a car if one is fitted, and as the driver you are also responsible for passengers: Rule 100 says the driver MUST make sure every child under 14 is wearing a seat belt or using the correct child restraint, and a child under 1.35 metres tall needs an appropriate car seat or booster. According to gov.uk, you can be fined up to £500 if you or an under-14 passenger is not belted when you should be, and only one person is allowed in each belted seat.

There are a few narrow exemptions in law – the clearest one for learners is that you do not have to wear a belt while you are reversing, or while supervising a learner who is reversing, because the belt can restrict the shoulder checks you need to make. On test and on lessons, though, keep it simple: belt on for everything except the reverse manoeuvres, and belt straight back on the moment you finish. If you have a medical Certificate of Exemption from your doctor, gov.uk requires you to keep it in the car.

M – Mirrors

Mirrors go last, and now you can see why: you have already set your seat and your back is in its final driving position, so the view you set will actually be the view you get when you drive. Adjust them out of order and you waste the effort.

• Interior (rear-view) mirror: sitting normally, reach up with your fingertips – not your whole hand, so you do not lean – and frame the entire rear window. You want the glass filling the mirror, with a little of the horizon at the top. Move it with the edge to avoid smearing the surface.
• Door mirrors: set each so you can just see a sliver of your own car’s side down the inner edge – that gives you a reference point – with the horizon running roughly across the middle of the mirror and more road than sky. The little sliver of car is what lets you judge how close you are to the kerb and to traffic alongside.

Getting these right is the groundwork for every observation you will make from here on. The whole Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre routine only works if the mirrors are set properly in the first place; if MSM is new to you, our full guide to the Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre routine picks up exactly where the cockpit drill leaves off.

What about the handbrake and gear?

Here is a step the plain DSSSM acronym leaves out but a careful drill includes. Before you touch the ignition, glance down and confirm the handbrake is firmly on and the gear lever is in neutral. That way the car cannot roll or lurch when you start it. The official pre-drive routine published by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency for emergency-response training opens with exactly that – “Handbrake on, gear in neutral” – before running through door, seatbelt, steering, seat and mirrors. It is a sensible habit to fold into your own drill: doors and self set up first, then handbrake-and-neutral, then start the engine.

Is the cockpit drill different in an automatic car?

Mostly no – Doors, Seat, Steering, Seatbelt and Mirrors are identical whatever you drive. The differences are at the feet and the gear selector. In an automatic there is no clutch, so you set your seat using the brake pedal: press it fully with your right foot and slide the seat so you have a comfortable bend in the knee. Instead of confirming neutral, you check the selector is in P (Park) before starting, with your foot on the brake. Everything else runs the same. If you are learning in an automatic, the cockpit drill is still lesson one.

What happens if you skip the cockpit drill?

Skip it and you start driving a car that is set up wrong, which quietly makes everything harder. A seat too far back means you cannot press the clutch flat, so you stall and struggle with hill starts. Mirrors left unset mean you are guessing at what is behind you and missing hazards. A twisted belt is uncomfortable and less effective in a crash. A head restraint left down offers little protection. None of these feel dramatic on their own, but together they leave you fighting the car instead of driving it – and on test, they cost marks.

The other reason not to skip it is that the drill builds the mindset examiners and advanced drivers want to see: you take a moment to prepare, you check before you act. That habit is the difference between a driver who reacts and one who is set up to cope.

How long does the cockpit drill take?

For an experienced driver it is around 30 seconds to a minute – a quick, almost automatic run-through when you get in, especially in your own car where the seat rarely moves. When you are learning it is much slower, and rightly so: on a first driving lesson the cockpit drill can take five or ten minutes while your instructor talks you through each control and lets you find your position. That is time well spent. Once it clicks, it collapses into that under-a-minute routine you will do without thinking for the rest of your life.

How the cockpit drill fits into learning to drive

The cockpit drill is genuinely the starting line – it is the first thing you do in the driver’s seat on lesson one, before moving off, before clutch control, before your first junction. Getting it solid early means the rest of the lesson is spent actually driving rather than fiddling with the seat. Our overview of what to expect on your first driving lesson walks through how it sits alongside the controls talk and your first moves.

On an intensive course this matters even more, because you are packing lessons close together and you want every hour spent building real driving skill. Complete beginners who have never sat behind the wheel usually start on our 50-hour Elite intensive course, which builds from the cockpit drill and moving off all the way to test standard; you can see how our intensive courses are structured if you are weighing up which is right for you. GetMyPass matches you with a qualified instructor and gets you genuinely test-ready – we do not sit the test for you, but we make sure that by the time you do, routines like this are second nature. When you are ready to start, you can book your intensive course and we will take it from there.