Tuesday, October 16th Preliminary driving results

I had my first peek at taking the practical driver’s test in England. I went out with a teacher for the first time, and he assessed my current driving skills. It was a bit surprising and a little frustrating.

The “lesson” was an hour long, and I was allowed to take the boys with me. I had to drive the instructor’s car, which is much smaller than either of our vehicles. The brakes and acceleration were VERY testy, which he warned me about right away. He had me drive in our general rural area without much traffic. At first I wondered how this was going to be of any benefit. There was nothing tricky or difficult and I felt uneasily confident. I was surprised when he had me pull over alongside the sidewalk and then told me a few things that I’d need to change in order to pass the test.

The first comment:

1. I was going a little fast. I was totally shocked! We were never in a speed limit greater than 40 and I think once I went 35 in a 30. I slowed down right away and in general I was keeping up with traffic everywhere I went.

2. My driving was a little “erratic”. I was taken aback! How can you be erratic in a 30 or 40 mph zone? There was hardly any traffic anywhere! That’s when he explained that I needed to be more “smooth”. Don’t accelerate so quickly after slowing down for a roundabout; don’t slow down so fast when approaching a roundabout. On the way home, I asked him for feedback about the “smoothness” of my driving during the 2nd half of our lesson and he said I was much improved. Now I’m trying to figure out if I was DRIVING differently, or if I was just more accustomed to his car’s very responsive braking and acceleration. Hard to know.

3. He said I had some “habits” that would need to be corrected in order to pass the test. The first one is driving me completely crazy! When steering, your hands need to be kept at 10pm and 2pm on the steering wheel. You are not allowed to do “hand over hand” to turn the vehicle. By no means are you allowed to turn, and let the steering wheel swing back to position. You keep your hands at 10pm and 2pm and re-grip, continually. I found this to make turning much slower. He said it was. I asked him if people did this in practice, once they had their license. He admitted that they may not, but you would need to do it 100% of the time during the test.

There were some other just plain silly rules that you absolutely must do if you want to pass your test. There are 4 maneuvers. One is to back into a parking space where there are cars on either side of you. Now he had me in a completely vacant part of a parking lot to practice. I found it’s actually easier to park if there are cars there then when it’s just white lines! The first thing you must do is physically look around you out of the windows to make sure it’s clear (I didn’t do that since we were in a totally empty parking lot, although I did check my mirrors to ensure that a car wasn't coming by –FAIL!). Then you back up, and be sure not to touch either line. Then, when you feel you are parked, open your door and check the white line. Doesn’t that sound completely insane to you? He kept reminding me, saying I must do this and if I forget, I fail. After checking that I’m with-in both white lines, not touching them, I put the gear shift into park and PUT ON THE HAND BREAK, even in my automatic car, even on a completely flat surface! The hand break is a big deal here. Paul used to use his all the time in Austin, even at red lights. He has now “outgrown” the habit, but I can see why he had it to begin with.

There are 35 different things I get rated on, and I need to get 8s or 9s (9 is top) for each of them in order to pass. He gave me a booklet and said that each lesson, he’ll rate me. For this initial lesson, I got an 8 for “carry out cockpit drill” (getting the car ready before driving away). For the rest, I got mostly 5s and a few 2s and 3s.

I’m fuming now, and not because of my score, which I admit, is irritating. The reason I’m fuming is because it seems the tester evaluates you more on driving the way THEY want you to drive (all these little rules) and not on driving safely.

Paul agreed with me when I came home and ranted and raved about it. He said that they have done all these studies that show (for example) that turning by keeping your hands at 10 and 2 is safer than hand over hand, or letting the steering wheel swing back into place. He told me that after his lesson, normally the instructor let Paul drive home, but after Paul’s test (that he passed on the FIRST time…sigh), the instructor drove home and he prefaced it by saying, “now here’s how you REALLY drive”!

I’ve been watching the other women at school, now that I’ve had a peek into the system, and they DO turn by using “hand over hand”, and none of them open their door to check where they are parked (although admittedly they are parallel parking, which doesn’t require that).

I need to keep my cool, go with the rules, and pass the test….then I can go back to driving safely and concentrating on staying to the left and handling the roundabouts. I will be SO GLAD when this is behind me!

Oh, the cost for my one hour initial assessment? $ 48.00. It’s a racket, I tell you!