When your mother is on the phone discussing her sister’s medical condition, “jelly-like” is not a phrase you want to overhear.
But anyway, today was my first official driving lesson. I did well – for my first lesson. Unfortunately in my head I was ready to pass. Dammit there is so much crap you have to learn to do – and you have to do your learning while travelling at speed. I lurched in the space of an hour from being fairly confident behind a wheel to feeling like a monkey astronaut. I mean it’s crazy; you’re sailing along while turning a wheel in a circular motion, moving your feet up and down, and looking into mirrors. I’m dizzy just thinking about it.
Oh, that turned out to be what was wrong with my mother’s sister – dizzy spells. It was her legs that felt like jelly. Cool; I have an actual giddy aunt.
4 replies on “Traffic Circles For The Kill”
Too true about the driving test. Most drivers would not pass a surprise test. Being a good driver has almost no association with getting past an examiner. Odd, but true. The notion becomes more concrete when you have tested in different countries. It is then you realise how so many rules that are designed with good reasons and safety in mind are nonetheless arbitrary conventions that are discouraged elsewhere. In other words, there are many types of good drivers but only one way to pass a particular test.
A case in point: I was in the carefully-inculcated habit of getting out of gear absolutely whenever stationary in traffic, as my father taught me. Apparently that’s now ‘the way it used to be done’, and I’m expected to stay in first gear (with parking brake on) unless I’m actually at a red light. Feels weird.
The parking brake things is British in origin, right? I know we talked about this in the past. Most people from outside the UK, myself included, find it to be overly cautious to the point of being counter productive.
The parking brake things is British in origin, right? I know we talked about this in the past. Most people from outside the UK, myself included, find it to be overly cautious to the point of being counter productive.