My Driving Experience (Or Lack Of)

So now that I can cycle, perhaps driving will be the next step. A friend asked a few weeks back if I have a driving license. How I wish! I have never completed my lessons actually, considering the fact that I have failed a few times, and now my theory examinations deadline has expired. So if I am to take up driving again, I have to re-sit for the theory examinations.

I started driving lessons way back in university. My instructor than was recommended by my cousin, but he and I never got along. He did not like the way I learnt, and I never liked the way he taught. I was always very nervous behind the wheel and all he did was scream at me for gripping the steering wheel too tightly, making me even more flustered.

I did not like the way he scolded, as he would insult me and my family. He said I was wasting my parents’ money by going for driving lessons in the first place since I could not seem to be able to control the clutch at first gear properly. What made him think it were definitely my parents who were paying for my lessons?

He also said I must have been too pampered by my parents, that was why I could not seem to do anything right, and I could jolly well tell my parents he said that. He topped it off by saying that for someone who could study until so high, wonder if my brains were for real since I always behaved so stupidly behind the wheel.

Finally after one particular lesson where the car kept stalling and jerking as I either pressed too hard on the clutch or lifted the clutch up too high, he told me to just get lost as I was “unteachable”.

I was really pissed. I did not care what he said about me, but why get my parents involved? Besides, as a teacher or instructor, his job was to teach well, not to just give up any student who might need more help just because the student was not up to his high expectations. I dared not even tell my mum what happened as she would only give me more depressing remarks.

The next instructor after him is a lady, recommended to me by my NIE course mate. She is more patient and I was under her for half a year. I stopped the lessons after that because I was in my final semester and had to start teaching after that, so I thought of stabilizing my job first.

After that, my friends told me to sign up for lessons at a driving centre, since the instruction would be more structured. Besides, we need to go to a driving centre in order to take our examinations, so learning at a driving centre would enable us to have first-hand training on how the examination would be like.

So I started having lessons at the driving centre near my place for more than a year. The instructors were rather kind and jolly, and they understood that we were all beginners, thus never imposed their high standards on us. I think my driving skills actually improved under them. Unfortunately, I was sent for three examinations, but failed all. :-(

After the third failure, my theory deadline expired, so if I am to take lessons again, I will have to go through the entire procedure again. Besides my workload was getting heavier, and it was getting harder to schedule lessons according to my timing and budget. Thus for the past three years, I have not had a single driving lesson.

I wanted so much to drive even before I entered university. I always envy all my elder cousins who could drive. They passed their driving examinations after two tries on the average, so I thought it would be easy to pass too. I forgot the fact that they are the types who have been and are good and successful in everything they do, unlike me.

I thought once I got my license I would be able to drive my dad’s Mercedes, since he was always away. But after that, my dad’s business hit a rough patch for a period of time and he has to sell off his car.

Since then, he had to share the car with my mum, and my mum for sure would never let me drive her car for fear I crashed it. She would want me to get my own car if I want to drive. Then my second and third exs were able to drive, so it became less of a need for me to drive since they would offer to drive me around as and when they could have access to the family car.

My cousins were asking me when I would finally have a license. I feel down and left out when I saw even my younger cousins getting their licenses long before me after just one or two attempts, even though I started lessons way before them. It only made me feel that once again, I could not do anything right.

But what is the use of having a license if I have no access to a car? If I am like my cousins where after they passed their driving examinations, their parents either gave them the old car and bought a new one, or they use their mum’s car, then I will strive to pass my test as soon as possible. It is no use at this point in time even if I can drive since I will never have the chance to drive.

But I will want to be behind the wheel some day. I used to think I would finally be able to drive by twenty-five, but now I plan to be able to drive by thirty. Still a few more years to go! Hopefully I will be able to afford a car by then.

Meanwhile, it is not a priority for me to take up driving lessons again for now, since I already have my time tied up with other things. Besides if I am to take up lessons again, I will want to learn how to drive an auto car, not a manual car, since everyone has told me that an auto car is much easier to drive.