Worst Driving Lesson ever? (A tribute to Graham J)

[bruce fielding]

We must all have some vaulable experience to pass on to Graham on achieving seventeendom.

My best driving lesson advice is: when driving your new stepfather's newer Sunbeam Rapier, don't for heaven's sake mistake the throttle for the brake and end up wrapping it neatly around a tree on your second time out!

Not that anything like this ever happened to me, you understand...

[mcecm]

My front 'L-plate' came off during my test. Spent a good 10 mins out of the 35 min test trying to find a petrol station to buy a new one in. That's a good time waster if you can somehow fix it to happen again Oh and watch your speed! Automatic fail if you are speeding and the guy notices but also I got a minor for doing 25!!! passed a school.

>> Edited by mcecm on Sunday 23 February 10:06

[FunkyNige]

mcecm said:Oh and watch your speed! Automatic fail if you are speeding and the guy notices

Well, three of my mates have got minors for speeding and didn't fail, one of them got a minor for going too slow aswell!

[Davey Boy]

Make sure you wear some decent shoes with thin soles. For my first driving lesson I turned up in a pair of Travel Fox basketball boots (as was the fashion at the time) which had really thick soles. I couldnt feel the pedals of the car at all and ended up red lining it every time I pulled away and any form of braking turned into an emergency stop.

I felt enough of a tosser driving a purple Micra in the first place without drawing any more attention to myself

[tvradict]

My test took me past a school at chucking out time. I went passed at 20mph, and was given a minor. Came the end of the test I noticed it, asked her why, she said you went passed the school at 20mph which is under the speed limit.

My reply "I went passed that school at 3.10 (primary school) and with kids from 5 - 9 running around driving past at 30 is not only inappropriate but is also completely mindless and irresponsible and for you, a DSA Examinar, to sit and tell me that using my brain is wrong and mark me a minor for doing so is just ignorant!"

[mcecm]

My minor was for going to fast! so there must be a compromise at about 23ish. Nige you must have lucky friends or maybe the examination standards are not very standard

[Graham.J]

I will remember all of those handy hints, please keep posting, I'm sure there are more words of wisdom for me, unlike the person who drove her car into the River Wey at Guildford on her test because of a clutch/accelerator confusion. (Found in Stephen Pile's Book Of Heroic Failures)

And I hope I'm not like Maureen or the woman who's failed her test 39 times having had 212 driving lessons.

[pwig]

My friend failed for going too slow!

Never give up hope, if you have a bad lesson, learn from it and build on it next time!

Learn from your mistakes and you will be fine!

[plotloss]

Had one driving lesson in 6 inches of snow and on another one a dog ran straight in front of the car, nothing I could do, dog was fine luckily, just broadsided it.

Would never want to go back to them days though.

Matt.

[robp]

On one of my lessons i was unleashed down a duel carrageway. My instructor sad "foot hard down, up to 70" as I did.
Some old git was hogging the outside lane, causing me to slow down.
"what are you doing? Pressure him" my instructor hinted.
So I did
The old git moved over and so did I, as the slip road I wanted was coming up.
My instructor then instructed me to "floor it" passed this old dear, which I did without hesitation.
End result: Approaching a tight slip road at 85mph in a Toyota Scarlet 1.0 was quite hairy!
"dont do that in the test" commented my instructor usefully after that little event!

[Davey Boy]

I failed my first test for going too slowly. We went from a built up area with a 30 limit onto a slip road leading up to another built up area. The slip road was a 70 limit but I went down it doing 30.

Passed second time though.

[P*Ting]

I got one of my minors for pausing during a parking attempt when a white van drove by (in a residential area) at 40, with two wheels on the kerb, literally a foot or two from people's garden walls.

I wasn't shocked into inaction or anything, I just didn't want to go through with a parallel park that involved loosing my bonnet to Mr Transit-Man.


In another tale, I also had a driving instructer with a blot missing (a bit worse than a screw loose). He was always pressuring me to be as close to the limit as possible 100% of the time, including past schools, round corners in town, upto junctions etc.

Managed to scare him when we reached a favorite road of mine (from tuition with my Dad). Blind bend, down hill, 60 mph limit etc, taken flat. Didn't know fiestas could dance like that...

[BCA]

Dont ever assume your driving instructor is just an instructor!!!!!!! mine turned out to be one of the BiB. Of course, he only chose to tell me this after I had committed several traffic offences.

This also meant he knew where his colleages were and meant that he could pick out roads to thrash the little BSM corsa along. Just to get it all out of my system before the test obviously...

[JonRB]

Allegedly my grandfather ploughed his car into a couple of parked cars whilst taking his driving test. As he and the instructor were extricating themselves from the wreckage he asked "have I passed then?".

[littlegearl]

i got 3 minors on my test for "use of speed" and still passed...

the examiner said i pulled out of all junctions like i was a man possesed... i replied with i didn't want to hold anyone up!!!

and i still drive like that today, so much so that in 17 months of driving i've only ever held 2 people up pulling out of sideroads, and then not for long (one of them was a missed gear)

[huge_ego]

Not an L-test, but when setting out to learn advanced driving ... On one of my first drives with the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) I went straight over a zebra crossing with pedestrians on it, missing running them over by inches! Fortunately for the sake of my beleaguered IAM coach, I eventually improved.

Incidentally, well worth doing the IAM (or RoSPA Advanced Drivers Association, if you want to be really skillful) after you've passed. Can’t recommend ’em enough. www.iam.org.uk (and www.roada.org.uk for RoSPA, but ignore the road safety tone as in practice it’s fast driving without the crashes )

[thelemming]

Hmm worst ever driving lesson...

I made the terrible mistake of taking some lessons from my mother, who coined the phrase:

"Turn left here, Right?"

[fergusd]

My sister, during her provisional licence training, with my Father supervising, thought that a car coming the other way was going to hit her (wasn't anywhere close to in reality just a narrow road she hadn't been on before), swerved to avoid, through a fence, down an embankment and onto a railway . . . rolling the car 4 times in the process . . . went on and passed her test first time and is now a decent driver . . .

Fd