Your Driving Test. What do you remember of it?

[Warren t claim]

Here's where a 17 year old W.T.C had to attend his driving test back in 1987. Wallasey test centre.

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As a 17 year old lad learning to drive there was plenty of mutterings and urban myths about what examiner you wanted. In Wallasey test centre it went as follows...

Jameson. Just give up hope. He fails everyone, especially 17 year old lads because a lad he had passed drove into one of his family and killed them.

Rigby. A career civil servant. Wants everything done by the book. Fails lads for looking too scruffy.

Jones. Fails every lad but will pass any girl wearing a short skirt.

I got Jeffrey Fourmile lookalike from George And Mildred, Rigby.

First exercise was the emergency stop which was done here...

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After that was the three point turn which was done here...

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Followed by the hill start done here...

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Then after returning to the test centre and a casual flick through the DSA flick book of road signs which I got all right, I was asked where I shouldn't overtake. I told Rigby a few obvious examples and he passed me first time.

My choice of test vehicle was difficult though. I was mostly self taught (from the age of 16) and instructed (at 17) by Mutha_Claim in the family Montego Turbo. There were two good reasons not for using that car for the test. The first was that turning up for my driving test in a high powered (don't laugh, it was 1987) saloon car would create the wrong impression before I even started. The second was that I was pretty hit and miss in the Montego when it came to reversing around a corner meaning that it was a 50/50 chance of me failing. I could've attended in my yellow and primer Alfasud but that was so tatty and borderline dangerous the idea was quickly dismissed.

Every driving school in the area wanted me to take a long course of lessons before letting me use their car for a test bar one, BSM. BSM agreed to let me use one of their Metro's as long as I had a two hour lesson the day before and booked the car for two hours on the test day, the hour before the test being used to calm my nerves.

The day before my test my BSM instructor arrives at my house and I hop in his Metro. The first thing I notice is that his DSA badge is pink meaning that he's not even a fully qualified instructor! Never mind, we set off and he seems like a nice enough guy, former publican, one previous drink drive charge and new to this instructor game. After a couple of hours we drive back to my home and he writes down my two worst habits that are going to fail me on the back of a card and he agrees to meet me here the following day. If you're interested, the faults were engaging neutral before putting the handbrake on and keeping my hand on the gearstick between first and second.

That night I have to meet a mate at the local bowling alley for a few games of pool and several beers as Granada Bowl has a bar with staff that don't ask awkward questions like whether we are 18. Throughout the night my mate is probing me with questions as to whether I'm OK because I don't seem my usual self. At this point in the post, I'll ask you Wobbers a question. Did you keep your driving test date a secret from your friends as we did just to give you the option of quietly brushing an embarrassing fail under the carpet if you "failed to reach the required standard?"

Test day arrives and fortunately for me, I have an early afternoon test which means my hangover is at least slightly manageable. The hour before my test I keep making stupid errors and I'm clearly getting frustrated. My "instructor" tells me to pull over and have a fag to calm my nerves which I do. Smoke over I drive to the test centre but on the way I notice the Metro's temp gauge rising. My instructor goes white and starts explaining that BSM will refund me my test fee but as their office is only a ten minute drive away he suggests that we head there to see if another instructor is there that we can blag a car off. The test fairy was looking after me and there was another Metro outside the office and we swap cars. A swift drive to the test centre and I park outside and my instructor wishes me good luck. He also asks me if there's a cafe near here he can go to while he's waiting, clearly, he's not had many pupils attending this test centre before! I point him in the right direction and walk into the waiting room. As soon as I walk in I'm greeted by the sound of "hello Warren". I look over and see another lower sixth lad from my class at school called Chris. Fuck! This means that if I fail the whole school will know about it! I sit down and flick through a copy of Autocar and attempt to read a test of the XJ40 but due to nerves, my brain is struggling to read the words.

Rigby calls me out before my classmate Chris. We walk outside for the eyesight test. He asks me to read the number plate of the van over the road. I look over the road to see a Honda Acty parked up close to the car in front covering the reg plate. I tell Rigby that the plate is obscured, he tuts and points to a beige Mk2 Transit parked a few cars back. I read the plate and he asks me to take him to my car. Despite being an Austin Rover veteran I pull away with the handbrake on just enough to illuminate the three warning light on the dash! Fucking hell I've failed already! I drop the handbrake down another notch and within a few minutes, crisis number two happens. I pull up to the red lights at this junction...

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Doing as I was instructed, I pull up in top gear, pull the handbrake up and try to engage first to pull away when the lights change. The problem was the lights didn't stay red for long and the Metro didn't want to go into first gear! Under a barrarge of horns the lights change back to red again and Rigby says "bloody BL gearboxes" and we both agree to jointly depress the clutch (he has dual controls) and try to find first. We manage to pull away with me convinced of a fail.

Back at the test centre to my great surprise I passed! Maybe it was me keeping cool over the gearbox incident that swung it for me? My instructor returns to the car and can tell that I've passed. He tells me to get into the passenger seat as it is the policy at BSM to never allow a pupil to drive back after their test regardless of a pass or fail. This is something I was really jealous of back in my bike instructing days as obviously, the punter would have to ride back to the compound, win or lose. As my test Metro was due back with it's designated instructor we have to drive back to the BSM office to hand it back. All the staff see the smile on my face and are delighted for me.

We hop back into Metro number 1 (with me still as a passenger) as it's cooled off now and my instructor drives me home. On the way I ask him what his pass rate is and he tells me that it's 100%. I'm impressed and enquire how many pupils he's taken for his test he gives me the honest answer of one. Just me. I'm his first! We arrive back at my home and the Metro is starting to boil over. I scamper in the house to grab a kettle of water to top the rad up with and even before I'm through the door Mutha_Claim can tell that I've passed. One radiator top up later and I wish my instructor a fond farewell.

[fraser]

I bought a cb100 when I was 17 to get to work. My mum was terrified that I would kill myself, so when I went back to Edinburgh for Christmas, there was a rusty as fuck alfasud 1.2ti sitting on their drive. My Christmas present was 10 driving lessons over the Christmas period.
Lessons went well, and I booked more when back in Kent.
My dad drove the alfa down early Feb, so equipped with L plates and a mate with a full licence, I hit the streets.
I applied for my test immediately, but first available date was Friday Nov 13th. I had jacked the lessons in by then, and just drove about with my mates.
Eventually, I just ditched the L plates, and drove illegally.
Can't remember the route around the Sidcup test centre, but the instructor did tell me he was changing the route to include the dual carriage way as the alfa couldn't get into 4th at 30mph.
As there were no dual controls, or extra mirrors, it was obvious when he was going to do the emergency stop. I did it perfectly, then fucked up at the end, by taking my foot off the brake, then reapplying it to stop the jolt. Fuck, I've failed!
Did everything else fine, then while going back to the test station, an old biddy stepped out in front of me. Perfect emergency stop carried out Examiner scores something out on his form.
Back at the test centre, strolled through the cards. "Congratulations Mr Innes, you have passed. Can I have your provisional license please? Mr Innes, are you who you say you are, as your license is unsigned?" Fuck! "Do you have any other form of identification?" Luckily I was an Mod apprentice, at a site about 8 miles from Sidcup, and had my pass with my picture on it, that he accepted.
My mate who went with me was sitting with the instructors. One instructor told him that his pupil was 85 years old, so born in 1900. He had never bothered to get a license (I assume the didn't exist when he was younger), and finally got pulled up many years later. The magistrate didn't fine him, but just told him to take a test before driving again. You will be happy to know that he passed.

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[SubPar]

I learned to drive in 2005 when I was 17. My birthday is in January, so by February I was driving my parents' doom blue Xsara Picasso 2.0HDi through blizzards without flinching.

My test was in June that year, in Inverurie. I did the test in my instructors' 2004 Fiesta TDCi. It was a three door in a lovely shade of metallic beige. The other year I had a Mk3 Mondeo in the same colour, called Oyster Silver.

Anyway, during my test some cunt turned right into the street I was just approaching the end of, cutting the (blind) corner massively. I ended up doing an emergency stop to avoid the collision, and stalled the car. The examiner told me not to worry about stalling it, the main point is that I avoided the collision. Then I'm fairly sure she cursed the other driver under her breath.
I ended up passing first time, with a minor (which was apparently almost a major) for pulling out at a roundabout a bit too keenly.

Since then I've had an unbridled hatred of lazy cunts who cut corners when turning right into a road.


After passing my test I was let loose on the roads of rural Aberdeenshire in a 1975 Series 3 Land Rover with nary a single straight body panel on it.

I didn't buy my own first car until I was 22, in 2010. That was a 1997 Peugeot 306 XLdt and that started my love of 90s PSA group cars.
I was perhaps already biased due to the aforementioned Xsara Picasso, and a couple of years before that I was riding around as a passenger in a maroon Peugeot 309 my dad had.

[mercrocker]

Passed my test 45 years ago this week (it wasn't my first sadly - one of my instructors said I was unteachable) but I was so confident on this second attempt I had already removed the L plates from my Imp.....Examiner said he didn't like my speed in urban areas but I didn't actually go over the limit, just thrashed the car up to it, which I still tend to do.

School car was a 120Y and the instructor had applied strategic stickers to the back window and rear side quarter light so that it was easy to line up for reversing round the corner. Just as well he did as it was a bit like looking out of a tank and not at all like my Imp for visibility.

One thing I do remember is the driving seat collapsing as I got in with the examiner (they were all proper old school civil servants back then) although I managed to click it into an uncomfortable but secure position - fat git instructor. I got dropped off at home by said fat git, bade him farewell and thanked him for teaching the unteachable before getting into the Imp and going back to work in it for the first time. Flushed with my new status as a qualified driver I stopped on my way home for a hitch-hiking ex school mate (I'd often see him hitch home, tight bastard) who was visibly a little uncomfortable as I announced he was my first non-supervising passenger.....

I passed my bike test the following October on a mate's DT125 because my own Suzuki Invader was too much of a shed to risk the wrath of an Examiner. I had to do a swerve avoidance as two old ladies doddered into the road on the test route which the Examiner commented on although he did add that shouting "Get out of the fucking way" did not, in normal circumstances, count as an "audible warning of approach"

That evening I rode my Invader to pick up my girlfriend only to discover the woeful inadequacies of shagged rear shocks in a two-up situation. She was only a svelte young filly, too.

[Hooli]

The only things I remember about my car test was it was on Friday 13th and it was in a Nova SR.

My PSV test was in a Volvo B?? And the buggers adjusted the brakes the day before. It'd gone from a coach that'd stop to one that'd lock the right front before slowing down. I also hit a kerb at one point and should have failed, but the examiner let me go as I correctly told him everything I'd done wrong on the test

My bike test was the first time I'd managed a U-turn without a wobble, took another month buggering about in carparks to actually know I could ride slowly when needed.

[bub2006]

My driving test was pretty uneventful. I had been driving on and off since I turned 17,illegally I admit and I stopped that when I met my wife until she put me on her insurance and L plates were affixed to her car.
I first took ill around the end of 2013 when I lost my provisional licence due to epilepsy. I'd had bikes for years so everything stopped. Shoved the bike in shed and waited it out. November 2014 came round and license came back so I re insured the honda I had and started using it,back to the days of bikes in any weather. I quickly found though it caused me monumental pain and discomfort riding in bad weather. About time I passed my test.
I spoke to a lass I went to school with who was now a driving instructor and she said book theory test in and pass then will start lessons so I can get a quick test if a cancellation comes up.
Managed to find a theory test cancellation for towards the end of January 2015 and passed first time. Started lessons the following week. I had 4 lessons in total and then my test. Test was taken in Kirkby in Ashfield and test car was a corsa D 1.3 cdti. My instructor did tell me to talk to the examiner to ease my nerves,after all they are human. I got the most miserable hgnorant cunt to ever grace gods green earth. My instructor did say after test that he was the exception to the rule but it was a low chance I'd havve had him so no point telling me about him beforehand!
I passed first time,2 minors. 1 was reversing into bay at slightly wrong angle and 2 was apparently talking while pulling out of bay means I wasn't concentrating.

[DodgeRover]

Can't really remember anything of my car driving test other than it was done in the instructors Micra and I passed first time. Both my tests were in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
My bike test was taken on my own RD125LC which I picked up from "nasty corner" where the part exchanges went at the bike shop I later worked at.
Test went fine other than me probably looking a bit odd wearing my open face helmet I used for trails, except for the emergency stop, got given the route to follow and after a couple of laps the examiner stepped out, road was a bit greasy and I locked up one wheel, I swore quite loudly before stopping, examiner looked at the road and told me to go round another few times. He then stepped out again and it stopped perfectly. Dual carriageway ride at speed was fun as the RD was obviously derestricted and I managed to open quite a lead on him before slowing for a roundabout.
Passed.

[AMCrebel]

Car test - 42 years ago (shit!)
I did have 20 lessons - I could drive (the mechanics of it) but not in the poncy (safe) manner needed for the test so I had quite a lot of re-learning to do. My Ma was a saint, actually, let me drive her and my sis to our Grandma's every Sunday for practice and mostly kept her trap shut about my shit driving despite once lighting up two cigs at the same time due to nerves.
Test was predictably in the "other" Vauxhall Viva HC from the one I'd done all my lessons in - it drove really differently - bastards. Stalled not far from the start so assumed I was fucked and would use this as practice. Emergency stop was made somewhat easier by the examiner giving me the spiel about it just as we turned into a road which I couldn't help but notice was littered with rubber skid marks......
Passed first time, was fucking surprised - was a shit arrogant driver for a while.

Never took my bike test - but had taken a moped test - which was the same test in those days. The examiner walked around with a clip board and would appear periodically. Passed first time -with the examiner damning with the faint praise "well you aren't very good but I'll pass you".

[Eddie Honda]

Done 5, passed 5 first time.

Car one I have probably recounted it before. Yeah everyone knew when the test was, but also it was summer holidays. Although a few had a four month head start, the first to take a test was a few days before mine. However they kerbed a reverse so had to wait the month of shame for a retest putting me back on pole. Out daily over 20 days in 3 different cars and bagged it first time so I WAS THE FUCKING DADDY!

About a week later bought a £75 Dyane 6 and enjoyed some open top motoring before it (and the MOT) expired two months later.

[treehugger]

Oh god, trauma!
BTW I learned to drive quite late, this century. Some thing I think most of you d realise is they teach you not to use your gears to slow down unless you really need to, as some body worked out that brake parts are less damaging to produce for the environment than clutch parts. Eco friendly driving.