The American car god has at last caught up with me...in England!

We all know how I HATE photos of myself: I'm supposed to be on the other end of cameras. But this is the least I could do for my instructor, Andy. (Used by permission of Five Day.)

Whew!

Briefly, after an incredibly agony-filled two months, I took the UK Driving Practical Test on Saturday in Norwich, and passed.

Correction: I did not simply pass, I passed with a miniscule 2 minor errors. One is allowed 15 of those and can still be awarded a license.

How can this be, considering that less than four weeks earlier, in Cornwall, I had failed?

Correction: I had not only failed, I had failed miserably. Although the examiner could manage to find only 10 minor faults, he rearranged reality and made them into THREE, count 'em, THREE SERIOUS DRIVING FAULTS. During the debrief, he also delivered a little lecture about how endangered he had felt when my directional signal flipped off of its own accord on a curve up a hill to an intersection and I chose to shift first and reapply the signal second in order not to stall on the FREAKING MOUNTAIN because I had an Audi on my tail! My Cornwall instructor (one must have one of those to learn those hinky backing-around-corner things and to rent a test-worthy car) was aghast when he heard the examiner deliver the "fail" verdict. I was aghast, and as angry as I've ever been.

No points on my license
In 46 years of driving, I have had NO POINTS on my license. None. In any state. You're welcome to check. No accidents, except for a deer hitting me, and a woman bashing my bumper when I was stopped at a light. Total lifetime auto damage? Under $2000, all in.

So...that gormless examiner in Cornwall drove me to several things. To wit:
1. I joined the Association of British Drivers so I can put my two cents in.
2. I decided to retake the test at a more sophisticated venue where the examiners might possibly have seen aliens before, and had become unafraid of us.
3. I decided on an intensive course with test at the end, far from home for two reasons: no demands by husband, dog and cat, and I wanted some time in a city.

I found Five-Day online, chatted online, phoned and talked with a live human, and booked a week's tuition in Norwich.

Five Day intensive driving course deals with a riled Yank
As it turned out, I was still so emotionally scarred from the Cornwall experience, I wanted Simon to turn around and fetch me home after he left on the Monday morning of the course after driving me there on Sunday. I managed to persevere, but went to the first session in a rare foul mood. (Not that my foul moods are rare; it was rare in its intensity.) Each day was one hour of classroom work followed by four hours of driving.

The classroom teacher was ex-military, and he--Bob--gave as good as he got. And brother, he got some shite from me that first day. To his immense credit, by the end of the week, we were having fun sparring with each other, and giving each other favorite quotes and so on.

The part on the road was wonderful, too. The driving instructor, Andy, is possibly one of the nicest, wisest, most knowledgeable people I have ever met.  He, too, got a dose of my wrath that first day. But we went for a drive, and after an hour, he asked why I was there, said I drove just fine, and should just tell the office to book my test so we'd get it booked by week's end. (The company has a full-time person who trolls for cancellations so they can book tests WAY faster than the timing the DSA--Driving Standards Agency--offers.) I told him about Cornwall, and I told him I really did need to learn how to back around a corner, because of being a Yank and therefore not having the DNA to permit it. (There are four maneuvers an examiner can choose from to test applicants: backing around a corner, parallel parking, backing into a parking bay and a three-point turn.)

To make a long story short, Andy and I had a great week driving and became friends out of it all. When Simon showed up to get me on the Friday--they could get no closer than Tuesday for a test booking, so I decided to go home for a week and take a Saturday, June 18 slot, instead--he chatted with Andy. We all decided that it's a shame we are six hours away...but sometime, Andy and his wife and Simon and I will get together for some dinner and a laugh, we have all agreed.

But the test. Ah, the test. Andy said at least a few times every single day, "If you drive like that, you should have no problem passing."

Professionalism at the DSA, Norwich
On the appointed morning, my nerves were shot--as they had been since the horror of that first test. At the test center, Andy was positively shrink-like in his efforts to chill me out, showing me photos of another instructor's new puppy since he knows I love dogs, assuring me that either examiner I got, Michael or Harry, would be a decent human being--a nice guy, in fact, who just wanted to see if one could drive safely and not whether one would wither under jackbooted and illegal commands, a la Cornwall.

That would be a change.

Harry was a great guy. Not only was he great, but he was charming. We had a nice drive, interspersed with conversation about cars, England, his job, my job. At the end of it, when he delivered those lovely words, "I'm pleased to tell you that you have passed your practical driving test," I was so delighted that I told him he was a lovely man, which Andy--approaching the car for the debrief--overheard, and laughed about. Then Harry thanked me for an enjoyable, confident drive. Amazing!  And then Andy took my picture for the company website--I submitted, with better grace than I had shown a couple of weeks earlier when the mental, physical and spiritual erasure of the Cornwall experience began--and it appears currently on the second page of student photos. (Look by date and name; I passed the test on June 18, written 18/06/11 in British usage. You can "like" the photo if you want.)

How, one wonders, could this experience have been so different from Cornwall? In the interim, I had not driven at all, except for the days with Andy. Basically, after the backing stuff was through my skull, that was just getting the lay of the land. Norwich is a real city, lots of traffic, cross-hatched boxes, every kind of pedestrian crossing, narrow roads, country roads on the outskirts, motorways...everything. Cornwall? Not so much. Simple, by contrast.

When bureaucracy goes rogue
I finally realized, driving back home yesterday after a lovely weekend in Norwich (great shopping, and the cathedral is magnificent), that I had been verbally abused in Cornwall. I recall every instant of that examiner's remarks to me. I recall his fumbling around about the parallel park, asking me whether there was a person sitting in the target car and deciding for me that I didn't want an audience. Why not? Did he think I could possibly have parked for the previous 46 years with never a soul on the street to watch? In NYC? I recall him telling me to go straight when it was actually a left turn and all the left-turn things needed to be done, and I did them. I recall his snorts, and his lousy directions that sounded as if he wanted me to go into a car park when he really wanted me to go downtown, and his following up my ALMOST taking a wrong turn with, "Did you think I wanted to go shopping? My wife drags me shopping enough." And those were the good parts. I recall that he said nothing about my perfect emergency stop, not at his bidding as can be required at a test at examiner's discretion, but because a motorcycle shot out from between two stone walls into the roadway. I made a textbook emergency stop, and a textbook departure when the incident was at an end.

My conclusion is that the Cornwall examiner was a gormless creep, at best, and possibly too incompetent to be judging the competence of others.

Harry? A total professional, competent, looking for what one wants on the roads: safe driving, good decisions, control of the automobile according to DSA standards, knowledge of British roadways...all that sort of thing. The same things any good driving examiner on earth would be looking for, not the ability of  already tense applicants--especially foreigners--to endure waffling, imprecision, illegal requests and derision, which is what the Cornwall examiner delivered.

So...is the car a god in England? Yes, much as it is in America. There are a few false prophets around who have tarnished that god well and truly, and have meaninglessly made experienced American drivers into shuddering hulks. You doubt it? Just read the stories by Americans on the internet about their UK driving tests.

But there are also true priests serving the god of the internal combustion engine, and I am thankful I found several in Norwich.

Thanks to Andy, thanks to Bob, thanks to Peter and the rest of the Five Day staff ..and thanks to the DSA's  Harry, too. I'm proud have met all of you, and not to have been judged lacking.

Gene therapy to pass the UK driving test

An English 60 mph road. I swear.* (Wiki commons)

Some people seem to lack the genes for various traits. For example, I think I must not have a gene for putting up with stupidity, because no matter how hard I try, I cannot do it.

I also lack the gene for suffering fools gladly; this is something like the above, but a fool is a fool all the time, while anyone may be stupid once from time to time. Thus with the first statement, I won't necessarily write the person off.  Fools? Gone, early and often.

I lack a gene for eating horse meat; I would puke.

I lack the gene for watching reality shows. Well, I did lack it. I think I must have had some unrecognized gene therapy, because I have now watched 14 weeks of the current 15-week run of Hell's Kitchen--despite the fact that there is NO ONE I can champion to win, and one of the two finalists is the most arrogant SOB I've ever seen still alive after the age of 18. (Usually, someone has pounded them by then and they're either human or dead.)

I also lack the following genes:

1. Backing into a supermarket parking bay.
2. Taking 22 minutes to make a three-point turn in the road while using the parking brake and doing The Exorcist head twirl with each move backward or forward.
3. Coming into a roundabout (Americans will read traffic circle) at 4 miles per hour.
4. Considering a Stop sign (one of those big red things that say, in no uncertain terms, STOP, which are the same in both countries) to be an invitation to roll through in first gear.
5. Failing to gasp that you just keep going when the center line has disappeared on a 60 mph two-lane road cut between two rock-based hedgerows when a disarticulated lorry (Americans will read semi) is hurtling at you downhill around a curve while using 3/4 of a road as wide--exactly--as two compact cars. When the center line is absent it means the road is literally less than the width of two compact cars.
6. Backing around a corner. It is illegal here to back into a main road, but perfectly legal, and expected, to back into a side road from a main road. Don't let questions of whizzing traffic on the mainly two-lane 60 mph main roads concern you; they don't. But I'm telling you, one has to have a gene for this.

To take them in order and deal with them as Ryan, the good instructor, has done:

1. Easy-peasy, he said. He's so unworried about it, he's not even going to bother with it until right before the test. OK. I'll agree with him on that. There's a formula. Plus--which at least makes me feel better--he says it's nuts. "Who would actually do that?" he wondered aloud. "You usually want the back of the car to the rear so you can load the groceries in the boot (Americans will read trunk.)

2. Three-point turn. No, you don't really need to take 22-minutes as the bad instructor said. But The Exorcist head twirl is a requirement. You can actually touch the curb with the wheels and not fail, as long as there is no human or dog in sight along that pavement (Americans will read sidewalk). So you might as well plan on not going back or pulling forward that far ever; as it happens, you can take five, or even seven, "points" to do the turn--as long as you don't fail the head twirl or bump a curb when a person is within the county.  (I think I can make up for this missing gene. OK, so in NY, you make the turn as fast as humanly possible so you don't get nailed in the side or honked at by some meshuginah putz or goombah.....But I can do this one. I can. Really.)

3. Nah, this was just too nuts, the figment of the bad instructor's imagination. If you crawl toward a roundabout that slowly, traffic will be backed up to Edinburgh. His attitude was based on the eco-driving move by the Driving Standards Agency, and is sometimes taught to brand new drivers--17-year-olds--because why not? Why not? Said Ryan, part of it is the block shifting, from fifth to second in one go. Although most newer cars will do it easily, some new drivers cannot--just plain cannot--do it, Ryan said. Maybe they lack the gene!

4. We haven't tackled this one yet. I just treat a stop sign like a stop sign; must be my stop sign gene kicking in. But I feel certain I can learn to creep or roll through it like so many BAD U.S. drivers do.

5. There is really only one thing to say about this:

OH, NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ryan has worked with me on this from the beginning. And mainly, I now leave the foliage covering hedgerows where it is. Worst case: I will slow to a crawl and let the massive vehicle (Americans read huge truck) pass me rather than try to wedge both of us in there at once, with the obvious margin for error and possibly dire results, which is, as it happens, perfectly acceptable on the test. So at least somewhere, someone at the Driving Standards Agency knows the roads are bizarre.

 6. Backing around a corner. The reason for doing The Exorcist head twirl here is so there are no surprises, such as people plowing into you while you're on the corner, or backing into it or beyond it.

Indeed. No, we DON'T want surprises like that! But think how much less surprising it would be if we JUST DIDN'T FREAKING DO IT? I mean, how hard is it, especially in a small country, to go a few miles to the next town if need be, find a good turning place (a roundabout, a car park, a one-way system to bring you back around)? Or even turn while moving forward into a side street and then make a three-point turn? Even if it takes you 20 minutes, isn't that better than risking getting whacked two ways by BACKING FROM A MAIN ROAD INTO A SIDE ROAD?

OK. OK. I can see I need some serious gene therapy on that one to pass the UK Practical Driving Test.**

 * It would literally be rated at the national speed limit, which is 60 mph, because it is not in a built-up area. This means you CAN do 60, if conditions permit. Or if you have that gene. Most Americans have the gene that dictates not doing it for fear of dropping off the edge on one side or taking home some hedgerow on the other.

**Yes, using the word practical while demanding drivers learn to do perfectly things they will never do again is a little oxymoronic.