My grand daughter is about to take her driving test. It is 60 years since I passed mine and, touch wood, I’ve had an uneventful driving career. It is harder for young people nowadays. They have the hurdle of the theory test ( an example of which I recently had a go at on line, and failed!), long waits for the test itself and then when they do pass, the prohibitive cost of insurance. When I was growing up we were taught road safety at primary school, and. Where we lived there was an inter schools road safety quiz. I was often on the team and so had to study the Highway Code and memorise interesting things like average stopping distances and road signs! As it happens it took me three goes to pass the driving test. This turned out to be the first (and only) exam I ever failed and was a great dent in my ego! Mind you there were extenuating circumstances. I had learned to drive in an instructor’s Vauxhall Viva and in the family Ford Anglia- remember those. My first driving test was in the Instructor’s car but on the day the car had been double booked and he turned up in a VW Beetle. Now if you have ever driven one of these you will know they take some getting used to. Although he thought I could handle the car it was a bit of a disaster and I failed. I think this dented my confidence for the second test.
caI’ve never been a petrol head and have always regarded cars as a means of getting from A to B rather than a status symbol. I’ve driven in all sorts of countries on what we Brits still insist in calling the “wrong side” of the road. Perhaps the most memorable was the 12 months I worked in Saudi Arabia. It was the 1980s and the Saudi road system was still being developed. I was required to take a Saudi driving test which was an interesting experience. We all assembled in a convoy of 8 cars. The examiner got into the first car and we set off. After about 200 metres he stopped and then got into the second car and the first car went to the back of the convoy. This went on until he had sat with all eight of us! We all passed! Saudi driving always included plentiful use of the horn and a liberal interpretation of lane discipline. Traffic lights were a new innovation and there was a custom at lights to sound your horn when they turned to green so the first car knew it was time to go!
It’s been interesting watching how driving has changed as cars have developed. For example when I approach a junction I still slow down and change down through the gears – it goes back to the era before servo assisted brakes. Nowadays drivers scream up to the junction and slam on the breaks. This I find unnerving- are they going to stop! It’s become one of my pet hates. The others if you are interested are drivers who only start indicating when they are actually completing the manoeuvres, people who don’t indicate at roundabouts, and those who pull out from a side road and fail to accelerate rapidly enough! And I have a visceral hatred of BMW drivers ( sorry if you are a BMW owner) who become life’s risk takers once they’re behind the wheel.
Anyway I hope my grand daughter does OK.
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