Community: Real Life

Flying squirrel alert


Joe

Joe is 20 years-old and lives in Poole, Dorset. He's decided to let us in on his experience of learning to drive, and promises to tell us exactly what happens when he takes his test; minors, majors and everything.
Entry: 2

Joe starts to realise just how bad road rage can get as he gets to grips with the clutch and tries not to stall every five minutes. And if only his instructor wouldn't talk so much and animals wouldn't come flying out of trees!

Oh dear. And everything was going so well. Ever since lesson three my stomach turns every time I see my instructor pull up beside my house for another hour of torture. I expected that learning to drive would challenge my coordination, reaction skills and awareness, but not my courage. That's the thing with learning to drive - you can go through periods where the stress and pressure just gets too much. And it's all about the clutch.

Let me explain about the clutch for anyone who doesn't know what it's for. Apart from the obvious function of changing gears, the clutch is actually what makes the car move, not the gas pedal. When you push down on the clutch it pulls two discs apart from each other and when you lift your foot away it places them back together, thus changing the gear. If you release the clutch too fast it stalls. Yes, there's that scary word. That's where the persistent problem lies and I hope, in fact I know, that I'm not alone in my trepidation. I would need about five hands in order to count the number of times I stalled in these few lessons. I just don't feel safe at the moment.

I've done about eight lessons now and I'm learning a lot about other drivers, the conventions of the road, about using speed and safe positioning. But the most interesting thing I've learnt so far is that all the driving stereotypes are true! I was slowly pulling left out of a quiet road in my generally cautious way and I noticed a white van riding up my backside (of the car that is). Fair enough I thought, builders are usually working to a deadline and I am quite slow, but he can see the L-plate so I'm sure he'll just wait for me. Nope. He actually swung his van around my car to turn left and sped off down the road as if to make some kind of statement. Now I understand why people get so angry. I've also been beeped at plenty of times by white van drivers. On the whole, though, most drivers are considerate.

"I would need about five hands in order to count the number of times I stalled in these few lessons. I just don't feel safe at the moment."

I've started to get to know my driving instructor in these few lessons as well. He's an ex-police officer, but a nice chap. He tends to make more negative comments than positive encouraging ones, but that doesn't bother me, I'm pretty secure with myself and my development, but I can see how this may put other new drivers off. I look forward to hearing about what he's been up to in the week and the other humorous stories he likes to tell me about previous driving lessons or pupils, even though I'm concentrating too hard to really listen. This can be annoying at times because this is when I make my mistakes. However, I've only just realised that he's doing it on purpose to prepare me for when I'm chauffeuring my family and friends around town when I've passed. 

All in all, it fells like I'm taking one step forward and one step back at the moment. It's important, though, to remember that I'm more likely to make more mistakes as I'm introduced to new technical driving skills and traffic situations.

We're told not to swerve for any animals smaller than a deer, I think. But I have been for cats and flying squirrels. Yes that's right, flying squirrels. I'll explain. I was driving along a main road towards the end of a lesson and all of a sudden a fluffy brown ball fell from a tree right in front of the car. To the disapproval of my instructor, I swerved and missed it and thankfully saw this little ball find its feet and leg it off the road. I don't know where to begin trying to understand why that had to happen to me at that moment in time, but it was a spot of light relief for me in a somewhat demanding driving lesson. Same time next week Mr. Squirrel?


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