The Driving Test

10:10AM. I sit in a run-down waiting room in a run-down part of town. It feels like a doctor’s surgery where most of the patients die before making it to see the doctor. Signs beg you not to be nasty to the staff as a mix of young people sit anxiously next to their driving instructors.

It is this situation where I found myself this morning as the time had finally come for me to take my driving test. I booked it way back in August but suddenly time had had it’s wicked way and the moment had arrived. A driving test on Halloween- but would it be a nightmare? 

After what felt like an hour but was actually only a few minutes, the driving examiners appeared in the waiting room. The first one seemed nice, I liked him. But alas, he was not the one. Nor was the next one. The waiting wasn’t helping my nerves. Finally a woman appeared and called for me. It had begun.

I had spent a fair bit of time lately looking inside car engines and working out what all the extra buttons in car do. The test begins with the examiner asking a couple of questions. All I had to do was test the brake lights and explain how the head rest should be set. I couldn’t believe my luck.

The first few minutes were going well. I remembered to check my mirrors and went down the right bit of road on a one-way system. We were about ten minutes in when I was asked to perform my manoeuvre. I’ve always found them quite tricky but after hours and hours of practice I knew I could do them. “Reverse round the corner” she said.

By the third time my back wheel had hit the kerb I realised I had really messed it up. Ten minutes in and I’d failed. I’m still a little confused about what happened. How did I manage to get it so wrong? I’ve practised time and time again and know that I could easily reverse around a corner in any other situation. This though, was my test so I managed to perform the worst reverse around a corner that I have ever done.

Despite the fact that everyone in the car knew I had failed, the test continued. You pay the money and you get tested comprehensively. I had been instructed that it was worth carrying on though because getting the feedback would be useful for my next test. I then proceeded to be an excellent driver for the remains of the test. It was like textbook driving and the examiner pretty well said as much.

All in all, it it very frustrating. I proved that I was good enough to pass a driving test but failed on something I’ve done almost literally a thousand times before. Fortunately I am more than used to failure given everything I’ve been through this year but it is still annoying.

At least I know I am good enough to pass so I will be taking another test pretty much as soon as I can. Second time lucky, right?

A weird coda to the whole thing: We were stuck in traffic for a bit on the way back to the test centre and out of nowhere the examiner proclaims “Has anybody ever told you look like Neil Morissey from the side?”. This was a bizarre thing to say. Pretty much the only time someone really notices what you look from the side is in a car. And as celebrities go, Neil Morissey is fairly obscure- he’s a British actor from things like Men Behaving Badly- and is best known for being the voice of Bob the Builder. So the chances of anyone ever saying that before are ridiculously slim.

Not the best of days by all accounts but it is just the gone-off cherry on the poisonous cake that has been 2014. Fingers crossed that the luck will be with me next time!