So yesterday I passed my driving test. It was the third attempt, and was at a different test centre, and in a different car. So the question that is worth addressing is "What changed to make me pass?"
Passing a driving test, much like research, involves some skill, practice, standard procedures, and also a dose of luck. Honestly, I haven't been this nervous about tests since my final year degree exams. PhD viva was comparatively easy. And while I can hold my nerves, other elements of the tests previously threw me off.
The first thing to note is that passing a driving test is not like driving daily. When driving, you usually try to be safe but also allow for corrections. While in a test, there is no reward for safely correcting things. It has to be right the first time. Compared to how I teach people, this feels just off and not natural. In a driving test, the aim is not to accrue faults. Too many, or a serious one, and you fail. My change of attitude for my third test was to treat every action of the test instead as a point scored. I was trying to up my own score. I was in my head starting from an already failed position.
All my previous tests were in Middlewood, a bustling part of Sheffield with winding, hilly roads and populated with lots and lots of junctions. You stop and start a lot, responding to the people around you. There are not really any nice long stretches of driving to ease into.
My first test was failed due to a lack of not making it obvious I was checking my mirrors. You have to broadcast it a lot, so it almost becomes a pantomime of driving. For my second test, I failed with a serious because I didn't give way as I was expecting direction from the instructor when what I should have done is stopped at the junction and carried on straight ahead. Despite my attempts to not have internal biases, I do have them towards older men, who for want of a better word, look a bit like you typical "Gammon", Sun reading Englishman. It also didn't help that one manoeuvre was in the most stupid of locations that had hazards evolving quickly - it was up a hill, a few yards from a junction, with a car at the junction that stopped to let a person out, causing traffic to line up ahead, and so as I was pulling in, there was lots of traffic behind me. None of it felt like a place to stop.
Both of those previous tests were in my instructor's car, which at the time was Renault Clio. A small city car. Nothing wrong with it. But once I got my own car and did supervised sessions in it and a few lessons, it really changed my level of awareness. Perhaps because it is MY car. I care even more for it so I am even more engaged to drive as safely as possible.
This all came to a head when my instructor's car was written off two weeks ago, as bodywork was stolen - the front of the car was gone! With time growing short before the test and the need to be ready, all my time went into practice in my car. And it paid off!
I was able to do a few test routes around Handsworth, which are comparatively new roads, though lots of roundabouts. But the stretches of driving between junctions and roundabouts meant I was able to ease into the driving and be less reactionary. And the result of the third test - a pass. Just 6 minor faults, mainly about being hesitant and appropriate speed (I think I was too slow in some places). But given everything that happened the weeks before, I will happily accept that result. So what does this mean now? It means I can drive to more hobby events and conventions, given the cost of public transport and the still present potential of COVID.
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