How to Fail Your Driving Test

This will be posting twice in a week, which is abnormal for me, but shouldn't be off-limits should it?? 

Anyway, I am currently sitting in St Pancras International in Starbucks, having just said my fourth goodbye to my good friend Emma, from university. (We kept seeing each other spontaneously over the summer not knowing when exactly would be the last proper goodbye!) She kept me company for half an hour – for I have well and truly started my year abroad – ladies and gentlemen...finally I am Paris-bound.

There are still a couple of hours before my Eurostar though and forty minutes of battery left on my laptop. Therefore I am taking this opportunity to kill a bit of time by writing a blog entry...about a particularly stressful episode known as:

“My First Ever Driving Test”.

I say first because there will be at least one more to come, for unfortunately, I did not pass it. The title sort of gives that away, doesn't it? Before I regale you with some of the more amusing aspects of the test, it must be noted that on the whole I drove pretty well. When I say 'pretty well' I mean that the examiner was not physically shaking or having a nervous breakdown when we pulled back into the test centre at the end, as my dad would have put it 'If you were that bad, you would have been able to tell from his face.'

I took it in Ashton, which is not a part of Manchester that I know that well but it's not too difficult to drive around once you know the roads. 

The test was going O.K. (not perfect but not bad) until I got to a small side road. Before that, there had been an unsure moment – for myself and the examiner – where I turned right instead of straight on – I'm not entirely sure what was going on but I had a mini-panic attack and then tried to remain calm. Because I checked the mirrors and indicated right before leaving the junction, it wasn't exactly 'serious' or 'dangerous'. The examiner seemed more surprised than cross. In a bemused tone he simply told me to follow the road round.

In doing this, I ended up re-routing myself to the town centre. Which turned out well because then I got onto a few roundabouts and territories that I know very well from driving lessons – and therefore I drove better.

However, then comes the side road. Actually, even before then, to get to the side road, I had to drive down a completely unfamiliar part of Ashton. This next part is a bit of a blur because everything happened in such quick succession that I don't remember exactly when I started to go wrong.

Perhaps it was the central reservation, which I could not cross until the last minute to change lanes, which frazzled my brain, causing confusion to motorists behind?

Or perchance it was the traffic lights, which changed gracefully to amber to red the exact moment I was approaching the junction edge, causing a knee-jerk, foot-to-brake reaction which I could not prevent?

Or most certainly (or so I thought) it was the fact that when I finally drew to a full halt, I realised with ice-cold horror in my gut that my front wheels were in a cycle-lane-box.

I was so sure that that was the end. I sat waiting for the lights to take an agonizingly long time to change, thinking 'I've failed, I've failed, I've failed...and all because of a STUPID CYCLE LANE!' Never once (or in the past month I've been driving again) have I accidentally gone over the cycle box mark waiting at a junction and on my test IT HAPPENS.

This whole experience has taught me that everything I DON'T do in real life suddenly all happened on my test. Who knows what brought it on – maybe test-condition nerves. Anyway.

We got to a side lane. Driving examiner tells me to pull over – I was wondering vaguely whether he'd say 'I'm sorry Rachel but you're driving like you're in an action-film today. I cannot continue.' 

(Sorry - any excuse to post a photo of Daniel Craig)

But instead he simply said 'I would like you to do a turn in the road. Try not to hit the kerb.'

So I said 'O.K.' and nearly added 'Challenge accepted!' because three-point turns are one of the easier manoeuvres (well, let's be honest they're less stressful than parallel parking aren't they?). But because the road looked a little small, I added 'Is it O.K if it's not done in three?'

He replied 'All I want is that you do a turn in the road, don't worry too much about if it's not done in three.'

I had NOT anticipated just how small some roads can be. In most practise-manoeuvres, driving instructors take you on manageable sized roads (maybe cause they're just getting you acclimatised) but this road was like nothing I had ever attempted. Basically I started off fine...

I turned the car around 90 degrees in a safe manner. But then the problem presented itself. I was horizontal across the road and then reversed back, turning the wheel the other way to get out.

But nothing happened.

I swear, I was trying. I was trying and trying to reverse back, turning the wheel so I could get out, but I kept going back...

braking...

then going forward...

...And then going back.

AND NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. I was NOT EVEN CHANGING DIRECTION AS I DID THIS MANOEUVRE.

I was getting more and more anxious and covered in cold sweat. In that moment, I identified strongly with the Penguin from Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers in the museum diamond robbery scene. As I lifted the back of my hand to my sweaty forehead, I had a flashback of this scene in particular:

Fortunately, I eventually got myself turned around fully (but there was also a woman waiting – more pressure) and it took me about nine goes in total, making the manoeuvre not a three-but-a NINE-POINT-TURN.

So I failed because of that, basically. That and the fact that test conditions did something funny to my driving – turned me poor from good almost overnight and I can't explain why.

Hopefully on the next one, things will go a little more smoothly. But I'm not ashamed – there are plenty of people who don't pass on their first time. The sad thing is now I have to wait 8 months (or more like 9 months now) to take my next driving test.

Until then, no driving for me in France. My next blog post may not be until next week because since Thursday I've been here (in the Paris region) and my apartment is not yet furnished. So before I can even say the word 'Eiffel Tower', I'm going to be running around my tiny town like a headless chicken this week, searching desperately for kindly strangers who can give me free 'meubles' (furniture).

Not that chicken. But imagine him headless.

And no, before you ask, I am not posting a photo of a headless chicken. Imagine Googling that! Yuck.

Ciao!