Driving test

greasedscotsman

OK, so how many tests did you take to get your driving licence?

prawny

1st time it runs in my family, Mom, Dad, Sister and Wife all passed 1st time too. Quiet roads around this way obv. 8)

softlad

My mum passed her test at the sixth attempt. She taught me to drive and I passed first time. Work that one out...

Big Shoes

10 lessons and passed 1st time, that was in 94', £10 a lesson and about £30 for the test, £130 for the whole thing.

tarquin_foxglove

1st time, two weeks after I was 17 & as my mum was a driving instructor there was no pressure.

I had to put in for it before I was 17, can't remember what the hold up was & why I didn't get the test on my birthday.

Soul Boy

Only got round to it aged 35, passed second time.

The instructor failed me first time, he told me I drove like a cyclist. I took it as a compliment, I don't think it was. I did (as I do) stop at all the red lights, he was a little concerned about my approach to junctions and round abouts. :oops:

Smokin Joe

Soul Boy wrote:

Only got round to it aged 35, passed second time.

The instructor failed me first time, he told me I drove like a cyclist. I took it as a compliment, I don't think it was. I did (as I do) stop at all the red lights, he was a little concerned about my approach to junctions and round abouts. :oops:

Your examiner failed you first time, the instructor was the friendly bloke who spent have your lessons telling you dirty jokes.

pedylan

First time in 1978 when lessons were £3.50 (if I can even remember that far back accurately). Beer was about 40p a pint (8 bob!). I wonder if we should use driving lessons or the price of a pint as the internationally accepted price index?

Stewie Griffin

Passed 1st time on 1st December 1987 in Horsenden Hill, the examiner wasnt paying attention when I cut a Volvo up on the Dual Carriageway. Effing milkfloat in the slow lane doing about 15mph, mirror, signal, manoeuvre around the milkfloat into the overtaking lane only to block said volvo from over taking me. He didnt beep and the examiner was looking down at his clipboard, phew .

Got back to the testing centre where the examiner said "congratulations, you have passed", I leant over to shake his hand and thank him but he got out and just left me hanging, I didnt let it ruin my day .

deptfordmarmoset

First time after two weeks of double sessions when I was 40. I think cycling had already taught me enough about road sense though, like Soul Boy, my instructor was a little concerned about how I took some roundabouts and right lane filters. I think he thought I was driving aggressively - whereas I was actually using more speed than the average learner to drive defensively, keeping up to speed with the other traffic when merging into a lane and not hanging about on roundabouts where going slowly would have been more dangerous.

It was certainly nothing to do with impatience. My examiner took me on a school run and directed me to turn out of a side road with virtually no visibility, double parked cars and kids all over the place. So I just sat there, taking care to show no sign of impatience, until I knew it was safe. I was there about 10 minutes. I reckon I passed my test by not driving.

alex16zx

The categories there mean that people who did it in 5 will be split between 2 categories!

Yes it took me 5.

greasedscotsman

alex16zx wrote:

The categories there mean that people who did it in 5 will be split between 2 categories!

Yes it took me 5.

Oops, my mistake, I did it first thing this morning when I wasn't really awake. Lucky I wasn't doing my test instead!

pedylan wrote:

First time in 1978 when lessons were £3.50 (if I can even remember that far back accurately). Beer was about 40p a pint (8 bob!). I wonder if we should use driving lessons or the price of a pint as the internationally accepted price index?

And how much are lessons now, £25-30! Yikes!

TommyEss

First time, but I certainly had more lessons than I really needed, which pissed my Dad off a bit... Think mine were about £18 a pop, and I passed in 2002 - on 4th July!!

All I can really remember from the test is my instructor telling me to reverse park into the space at the test centre - saying it gives you one last practice, but also means you drive out forwards so are less likely to cock things up right at the start of your test.

Didn't stop him jumping in the drivers seat and re-positioning the car squarely in the space before the examiner came round though - he said first impressions were everything!

I then proceeded out of the test centre, turned left, and was confronted with a row of parked cars on my side of the road, and a dirty great coach coming the other way. So my first five minutes were spent waiting with my indicator clicking for this coach to negotiate the cars and ride the kerb. He didn't like my small talk about him failing his test for that...! :oops:

DavidBelcher

1 and failed, but at the present time, I am of the 'never again' mindset. Hated learning to drive, got roped into it based on the advice of others who thought it A Good Idea. Wish I'd saved myself a heck of a lot of cash and free time by never bothering in the first place. Had my last driving lesson (in a reluctant attempt to aim for a re-test but then gave it up as a bad job) 3 and a half years ago and haven't been behind the wheel of a car since.

David

wastelander

Once each for both car and motorbike (persuit style test). Only had a motorobike for years before getting the car test passed on a week long intensive course - I suppose driving in a nice safe safe box is a doddle after a motorbike 8)

Nuggs

prawny wrote:

1st time it runs in my family, Mom, Dad, Sister and Wife all passed 1st time too. Quiet roads around this way obv. 8)

Your instructor obviously feared being eaten.

hopper1

3 lessons, passed test 1st time
Had ridden M/bikes for a few years before, which helped a lot with road sense, but hindered a lot with attitude :twisted:

pottssteve

Extract from my memoirs...

Some people are born drivers. Behind the wheel they take on an air of supreme confidence, seemingly having acres of space and hours of time in which to perform complicated manouvers whilst simultaneously tuning the radio and holding a conversation. Other people, amongst whom I class myself, are to safe and confident driving what Herod was to child care. Consequently it took me 4 tests, six years, hundreds of lessons and thousands of pounds before I got to tear up the L plates. However, whilst working in South Wales I determined that having a licence would improve my job prospects. During my free time therefore I decided to try, once again, to pass my driving test. I had begun to take lessons whilst still in school, but the old combination of timidity, poor multitasking skills and loose bowels had meant repeated failure. Determined to become independent of the local rural bus service (6 buses a week into the nearest town, which was 16 miles away) I made arrangements with a local driving instructor. Because I lived about half an hour from the middle of nowhere, she insisted on 2 hourly lessons in order to make it worth her while to drive all the way to pick me up. So one sunny afternoon I waited nervously by the sea wall for her to collect me. After 10 minutes or so a bright red Nissan Micra with a large Learner Driver sign on the roof pulled up alongside me, and like a hooker finding a willing punter I slid casually into the passenger seat. My tutor was a squat, thick-set Carmarthenshire lady in her 50’s who, I was later to learn, worked 16 hour days in order to accommodate demand for driving lessons in her corner of West Wales. God knows how she did it. Two hours of gear box grinding and bunny hopping down the country lanes were about all I could take; she must have been half deaf and have enormously strong neck muscles in order to prevent spinal damage as I bounced the car from first gear into second, the picturesque horizon appearing and disappearing in the front windscreen like a fishing boat in a force 8 gale. As soon as we met I felt that we had clicked instantly; I was timid and she liked to shout. Sometimes she would shout at other road users. She once used the international sign language for “wanker” at one impatient fellow in a Mini Metro. However, most of the time she shouted at me, things like,” put it in third”, and, “put it in third NOW”, as my speed edged closer to 50 miles per hour and the rev counter crawled into the red bit at the top of the dial. Unusually for a driving instructor, she also had two catchphrases, both of which she employed at regular intervals in order to encourage a shy, defensive driver such as myself. The first one, “Give it the gas”, sounds like something cool Samuel L Jackson might say, but when yelled in your ear by a short middle aged woman with a strong Welsh accent whilst doing 20 miles per hour in the outside lane of a dual carriageway just tends to induce panic. Her favourite however was, “Go for the gap, Steve. Go for the gap”. This was employed at ear-splitting volume during such desired manouvers as entering a main road from a side road, joining a roundabout, or when swerving violently to avoid heavy farm machinery on narrow rural lanes. Despite my inability to even detect a gap on many occasions, let alone insert a dual controlled Nissan Micra into it, we survived numerous such near death manouvers. Conclusive proof, however, that yelling at me worked came several weeks later when I took, and passed my test, during rush hour in the rain, without soiling myself. Having successfully mastered the motor vehicle I didn’t get behind the wheel of anything except a go kart for the next 9 years.

Porgy

softlad wrote:

My mum passed her test at the sixth attempt. She taught me to drive and I passed first time. Work that one out...

She probably made most possible mistakes during her 6 times - and made sure you didn;t.

Porgy

pottssteve wrote:

Extract from my memoirs...

Some people are born drivers. Behind the wheel they take on an air of supreme confidence, seemingly having acres of space and hours of time in which to perform complicated manouvers whilst simultaneously tuning the radio and holding a conversation. Other people, amongst whom I class myself, are to safe and confident driving what Herod was to child care. Consequently it took me 4 tests, six years, hundreds of lessons and thousands of pounds before I got to tear up the L plates. However, whilst working in South Wales I determined that having a licence would improve my job prospects. During my free time therefore I decided to try, once again, to pass my driving test. I had begun to take lessons whilst still in school, but the old combination of timidity, poor multitasking skills and loose bowels had meant repeated failure. Determined to become independent of the local rural bus service (6 buses a week into the nearest town, which was 16 miles away) I made arrangements with a local driving instructor. Because I lived about half an hour from the middle of nowhere, she insisted on 2 hourly lessons in order to make it worth her while to drive all the way to pick me up. So one sunny afternoon I waited nervously by the sea wall for her to collect me. After 10 minutes or so a bright red Nissan Micra with a large Learner Driver sign on the roof pulled up alongside me, and like a hooker finding a willing punter I slid casually into the passenger seat. My tutor was a squat, thick-set Carmarthenshire lady in her 50’s who, I was later to learn, worked 16 hour days in order to accommodate demand for driving lessons in her corner of West Wales. God knows how she did it. Two hours of gear box grinding and bunny hopping down the country lanes were about all I could take; she must have been half deaf and have enormously strong neck muscles in order to prevent spinal damage as I bounced the car from first gear into second, the picturesque horizon appearing and disappearing in the front windscreen like a fishing boat in a force 8 gale. As soon as we met I felt that we had clicked instantly; I was timid and she liked to shout. Sometimes she would shout at other road users. She once used the international sign language for “wanker” at one impatient fellow in a Mini Metro. However, most of the time she shouted at me, things like,” put it in third”, and, “put it in third NOW”, as my speed edged closer to 50 miles per hour and the rev counter crawled into the red bit at the top of the dial. Unusually for a driving instructor, she also had two catchphrases, both of which she employed at regular intervals in order to encourage a shy, defensive driver such as myself. The first one, “Give it the gas”, sounds like something cool Samuel L Jackson might say, but when yelled in your ear by a short middle aged woman with a strong Welsh accent whilst doing 20 miles per hour in the outside lane of a dual carriageway just tends to induce panic. Her favourite however was, “Go for the gap, Steve. Go for the gap”. This was employed at ear-splitting volume during such desired manouvers as entering a main road from a side road, joining a roundabout, or when swerving violently to avoid heavy farm machinery on narrow rural lanes. Despite my inability to even detect a gap on many occasions, let alone insert a dual controlled Nissan Micra into it, we survived numerous such near death manouvers. Conclusive proof, however, that yelling at me worked came several weeks later when I took, and passed my test, during rush hour in the rain, without soiling myself. Having successfully mastered the motor vehicle I didn’t get behind the wheel of anything except a go kart for the next 9 years.

you have memoirs?

I have a diary

pottssteve

Elderly gentlemen have memoirs,
teenage girls have diaries...

Smokin Joe

I spent 20 years as a driving instructor. Two of the best drivers I ever had took 5 attempts each to pass. After terrible starts and loads of lessons when it finally began to sink in they had had so much practice they were smooth and safe behind the wheel and I got compliments from their examiners after the tests had finished, I suppose proving that the best lessons are the hardest learned.

The quick learners who passed first time after minimal lessons were the ones who ended up upside-down in a ditch within a short time of getting their licence.

Porgy

pottssteve wrote:

Elderly gentlemen have memoirs,
teenage girls have diaries...

i think i'm somewhere in between :oops:

pottssteve

Hey, Joe,
You don't know any aggressive middle aged lady Carmarthenshire Instructors, do you? This was a good 17 years ago...

Smokin Joe

pottssteve wrote:

Hey, Joe,
You don't know any aggressive middle aged lady Carmarthenshire Instructors, do you? This was a good 17 years ago...

Most of my instructing was in London, I gave up a couple of years after moving down here. There is a highly trained female ADI in that area though, she does a lot of instructor training and though I met her once I can't recall the name. I could imagine her being a bit of a tough cookie though.

pottssteve

God - you mean she might be still alive?! Mine looked like Rosa Klebb on steroids...

bobpzero

when they say practice makes perfect, i think i had just enough lessons. tho i did leave it quite late. doesnt get any easier. its great fun testing the limits of a car without crashing it.

Stone Glider

I was "taught" by my dad, who was the worst driver I have ever sat with. His motto was "if they have time to blow the horn, they have time to swerve to avoid you". After the fail I booked six lessons for £10. When i sat the test again I was allowed to use his car but he drove me to the test station! No chance of a refresher session pre=test or anything. I drove round Cathays and Roath, Victorian suburbs of Cardiff with the grid iron street pattern, my arm nearly dropped of with all the hand signalling!

When you sat in a Morris 1100 the seat and controls didn't quite align with the centre line of the car, this made ordinary driving odd and reversing strange indeed. As it was front wheel drive the hill start was dead easy as the bonnet rose up as the clutch bit.


I drive less and less now, it was never a pleasure, only a chore. Once I had ridden motorcycles there was no comparison.

teagar

First time.

Passed just 3 months ago.

Tonymufc

I passed my car and H.G.V. first time. H.G.V. was the toughie 1 hour and 10 minutes the test lasted. 20 minutes in the car.

Stewie Griffin

Tonymufc wrote:

I passed my car and H.G.V. first time. H.G.V. was the toughie 1 hour and 10 minutes the test lasted. 20 minutes in the car.

I should flipping well hope so