Getting a UK driver's license...sure, cinch.....NOT!

Look down the road. Note the foreground is less than two cars wide. Note that in the distance, it is barely more than one compact car wide. Now imagine the same road with twists and turns--lots of them--and lots of steep hills, 14 percent grades and such. Now imagine bicycles, hikers and dogs also using the road. Then imagine a humongous truck coming at you. Ah...driving in Devon and Cornwall!

 

One has a year after becoming a legal resident to get a UK driver's license. I didn't become a legal resident, really, until we bought the house. Conceivably, I would have almost another year to accomplish the deed. However.....

I have started the process and there's no turning back. In November, I decided to get myself into the motor vehicle drivers' system, thus starting the year early. In January, I finally decided to have a look at the official government driving rule book and take the test. Thankfully, I had also bought a second book by a private firm, and that's the one that was most useful. Indeed, the government book is riddled with contradictions. In one place, it says that the reason one stops at a T-junction on a hilly curve is because things might come around the curve, and one is further admonished to look REALLY hard to ensure nothing is coming before joining the roadway. In another place, it says the curve is the reason for looking REALLY hard. What's the difference? To a driver, none. You're going to look REALLY hard either way. AHA!  But on the test, they give both answers (and a couple of ringers) to choose from, and your guess is as good as mine which one they want on any given day.

On the given day I took the test, they wanted the other one, the one I did not choose. So I got one answer wrong, or a 98 percent on the test. One must get an 84 to pass. So I did pretty well, right? No. It pissed me off, not because I got one wrong but because it was so capricious.

And now comes the time I must book the practical test. In the US, these run from about 30 minutes on actual roads (New York State when I took it at 17 and passed) and Maryland, 10 minutes in a big parking lot proving one can go forward, backward and stop and not much more. (I think my dog can do that.)

In the UK, it's far, far different. It's a 40-50 minute test, and it goes like this:

• Prove to the examiner that every last little thing on one's car is working properly.
• Prove one can see a number plate at a distance of 20 0r 20.5 metres, depending on whether the examiner is using an old or new number plate. If you fail this, the test stops here.
• If you pass the eye test, then it continues.
• If one isn't using a car from a driving lesson company (the expected thing), then one must provide a stick-on mirror for the examiner to he can see behind you, too. I assume the lack of dual controls constitutes hazardous conditions and they probably get extra pay for examinees who use their own car.
• Answer questions about the car itself. This may include how to check and top up all fluids, how to test power steering, what various warning lights look like, and more.
• Then, perfectly execute a cockpit check, in the prescribed order. 
• Drive, according to instructions from examiner. The test will include all types of roads, except Motorways (equivalent to interstate highways). It will almost certainly include what I refer to as green tunnels (see above).

The Green Man, or Woman, Redux
When driving in a green tunnel, one must see around bends. And therein is the first difference from all I was taught when I first learned to drive. I was taught, on curves, to hug the shoulder in case oncoming traffic was over the center line. Here, they want drivers to pull slightly away from the shoulder, the sooner to see anything that is coming at you--head on--from the other direction. I wonder if that's so you can say a quick prayer before you die.

So, I have to overcome 45 years of safe driving in the US to deal with green tunnels. Nor is that all. Obviously, where there is only room for one car, something has to give. What gives is the car closest to a pull-off space, which one must look for and note for future reference as one drives through a green tunnel.

I loathe backing under the best of circumstances. But consider this: There may be another car roaring up behind one. There often is, in fact. So then one must halt in one's backing and wait for that car to back. I have seen it involve as many as five cars, all looking for that one-car-long pull-off spot in the hedgerow.

NOTE: A hedgerow isn't made of hedges. It's made of rocks thinly coated (if at all) with hedges. Not a soft landing for the side of one's car if on misjudges.

This can take a while, with one car replacing the other in the pull-off, even providing more cars aren't arriving from the other direction to complicate the issue.

And this can be on the test. It makes driving through small towns look like a piece of cake.

In-town driving: Exercise in dash and wait
Small towns: A collection of houses separated by a thoroughfare that is two cars wide, often has a center line, but also has cars parked higgledy-piggledy along its length.

So, if you are in the clear lane, you can proceed and oncoming cars must wait and then pull out and use your lane to go forward. If you are in the lane with the obstruction, you can pull out around it as long as nothing is coming the other way, and you can also proceed if you see that both cars are narrow and can, in fact, fit the roadway each going in its own direction without too much risk of a sideswipe one way or another. Needless to say, one doesn't play chicken on such roads with large trucks. Or old folks. Or grackles/emmits, that is, people visiting from northern counties that have roads built in recent memory to accommodate cars rather than ones built in 1360 to accommodate cows and the odd peripatetic saint going to find a holy well.


Backing into parking spots rather than out
But back to the test. One must also demonstrate an ability to back into a defined parking space, such as those in front of supermarkets. The British have the quaint idea that backing in is less dangerous than pulling in headfirst and backing out. I can't fathom this for the life of me. One is much more likely to spend more time getting into the spot--making sure of sufficient room for all passengers to exit, etc.--than pulling out backward when all one wants to do is exit without grazing the neighboring cars and get into the roadway. It's generally a faster operation to back out of a space than in. Faster, when entering a roadway other cars might be using, is safer than slower.

The other truly weird required maneuver is backing around a corner. WHAAAAT?  If one backs around a corner in most states in the US, and a cop sees you, he or she will probably take your license and rip it up on the spot. I'm wondering if, having driven for 45 years with no accidents and no tickets--despite driving for my job often enough--I can actually do this insane thing. WHY would I do this insane thing? Why would I not, as my driver's ed teacher--one Mr. Fitzgerald who was, yes, related to the Kennedys--drive on and find a place for a legal u-turn where the sight lines in all directions were good, something certainly not true with BACKING AROUND A FREAKING CORNER! I suspect I shall do this insane thing exactly enough times to learn how, once on the test, and never, ever again. I think it would rattle my brain and destroy my soul, so much a part of me is NOT BACKING AROUND A FREAKING CORNER.

I've got to do all this before the second week in May. I have booked driving lessons with AA (Automobile Association, no need for American....same outfit). All I want them to do is drill me on the insanities: backing into a supermarket parking space and backing around corners.

Green tunnels? Got that whipped.  Well, almost. Or at least I will have as soon as I get them to teach me how to tell where the hedges end and rocks begin 100 percent of the time. So far, I'm not quite batting 1000 on that.