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| Very well-marked learner car on unusually wide UK country road. (Wiki commons) |
I continued driving lessons with a lovely instructor from Jenny Hayes School of Motoring, a lesson company headquartered in Bude. We had a lot of fun, mainly because he wasn't teaching me to drive; I had been doing that for 46 years without a single moving violation or prang. He was teaching me to pass the test. Period.
In May, my test date arrived, in the nick of time for the year's window I had. There should have been no problems.
THERE WERE BIG, BIG PROBLEMS.
The first problem was the examiner. When he got into the car, he rummaged around on his clipboard as if he couldn't quite figure out what to do next. Then he checked the lesson car's tax stamp, and flipped it onto the dashboard as if it were smelly. Then we began. We began by entering a housing estate with teensy roads and a 20 mph speed limit. Lots of speed humps. Lots of parked cars. Lots of curves and hills. No problem. Not for me, anyway. I did forget to compulsively check all my mirrors every time I shifted up after downshifting for first for the speed humps. But only once or twice.
Then we had to do the first one of the two out of four maneuvers they may require. The maneuvers are parallel parking, backing into parking bay, backing around a corner, or turn in road (formerly 3-point turn, although 5 turns are now allowed).
Reverse around a corner....say what?
I've mentioned it before, but no Yank in his or her right mind would back around a corner. Indeed, in some states, it's a traffic violation that will get you points and a fine. I contend that we are mentally and emotionally incapable of performing that maneuver after being drilled against it for years. So I hoped he would not choose that.
And he didn't. He chose parallel parking. So we went down a side street and he chose a target car. Yippee! Parallel parking! As a native of New York City, I had NO problems doing that, and in spaces tighter than anyone in Cornwall every dreamed of with more shouting motorists wanting you to hurry up so they could get by.
But NOOOOOOO. He decided that, as there was a person in the target car, I wouldn't want to parallel park there, as if it would make me nervous. If it had been Godzilla in the car it wouldn't have made me nervous. As I said, it's a maneuver any native New Yorker does as easily as breathing.
I drove on. He decided we would to a reverse around a corner instead.
It was horrible. My reverse was horrible...but not horrible enough to fail me. I was within the guidelines laid out by my instructor. And I compulsively checked all mirrors all the time. Remember this. It is a key point in passing the UK driving test. You'd be best off if your head swiveled like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist.
Next was merging onto a motorway. No problem. Then driving down a country lane. No problem. Then negotiating a 16th century bridge that was possibly seven inches wider than the car. No problem; my instructor had drilled me on that one. Then a drive into a small city where, as it happened, a motorbike lurched into my path and I had to do an emergency stop, which saved the examiner from having to ask for it later. And I did it perfectly, as I have been doing it for 46 years...must have, since I have never hit anything.
Then up around a hill where one had to keep the left turn signal on despite enough curve for the car to cancel it, and where, if you had someone poky in front--and I did--you'd also have to downshift once or maybe even twice. I did. So the signal was briefly cancelled. But I immediately put it back on when the downshift--and NOT stalling--was accomplished.
How many hands does it take to drive a car?
That, however, was apparently the kiss of death. The bugger failed me, said he had felt "endangered" on the hill. What if someone had come up behind me while the signal was off? I said, "What if someone had come up behind me if the car had stalled?" It was a choice. Had to have one hand on the wheel. He didn't like my choice. But actually, he didn't like me. He seemed to resent having a Yankee woman of some age moving permanently to England. He was reacting like an unsophisticated hick, I decided. And I decided I would NEVER take another driving test in Cornwall. I would go north, to a city where people had seen foreigners before, and didn't penalize them. Or do as the Cornwall examiner had done and instruct me to make an illegal turn, which I wouldn't do. (I wondered, at that point, if all examiners were sadistic cretins.)
I booked a week's tuition at Five-Day Intensive Driving in Norwich. I didn't need the intensive lessons...at least, I hadn't until the experience in Cornwall. And indeed, within fifteen minutes in the car, the instructor asked me point blank, Why are you here? I told him the Cornwall story and he told me I had just run into a louse and as far as he was concerned, I could book a test immediately. But the fees were paid, I was happy to be in a city for a break (I shopped mornings, and drove afternoons), and by the end of the week, the instructor and I had become good friends. Still are. But that, as it happens, is another story....for next time.
Meanwhile, my amazing experiences on UK roads seem to have become a novel, finally finished, and published, here. It's a humorous murder mystery, with even more mayhem than US drivers will experience during their first year on UK roads.
