The end of the road: On finally passing my driving test

That’s right folks, I finally conned someone into believing I can be trusted behind the wheel. Watch out road users and pedestrians, here I come!

Just kidding. I’ve been told I’m a good driver. Which I should be, given I learned on and off for about four and a half years. That many years, four theory tests – one failed and two retaken due to lapsing – and, I’m almost certain, three practical tests later, here I am: a licensed driver. 

It was a long road to get here, but well worth travelling to have earned that little bit of pink plastic and the right to head out on literal roads, solo. 

With the journey now in my rearview, I find myself looking back on it. Especially to question why it took so long. In retrospect, unavoidable delays aside, I think I could have arrived at this point sooner.

So why didn’t I?   

A bumpy journey

As I’ve already mentioned, four and a half years is a long time. So I can be forgiven for my hazy memories of the lessons and tests I took over that period, and for not being completely certain of whether it was three or four practicals I took. But I do recall moments and sentiments here and there.

I remember getting behind the wheel for the first time in the deep darkness of a winter evening, to start applying the basics my instructor had so far only demonstrated and explained to me. I remember being ever-so-slightly terrified going 60 mph the first time I drove us back to my home from a lesson. I remember the jerky and short trip that resulted in my first failed practical.

That moment, about three and a half years ago now, is one that stands out starkly against the rest. Even writing this, I can almost hear the quiet, nonchalant words the examiner spoke as he calmly crushed me. It was a painful blow to experience, and even to recall, but I can that accept it was deserved, even necessary.

When I took my first test, I just wasn’t ready to pass. I may have known what I was doing, and could maybe consider myself an okay driver, but if I couldn’t complete a 45-minute drive without my instructor’s comforting presence beside me, I certainly couldn’t go it alone.

Fortunately, the disappointment and hurt of the failure aside, that didn’t really bother me. As someone who had only started learning to drive because they felt it was expected of them, I was in no rush to get my licence. I was fine with my bus and train commute to work, with the public transport through my city, and taxis and lifts when that was too slow. They were all part of routines I was accustomed to.

And I was fine with getting more lessons and booking another test. I was honestly quietly pleased when I couldn’t take it thanks to Covid and the lockdown it resulted in. And, when the loosening of lockdown restrictions allowed, it was the money and time I was losing more than anything else that bothered me as I continued to, off and on, meander through more lessons while not-so-subconsciously avoiding and delaying any further hurt in the form of an examiner’s judgement. 

But then something changed. 

A much-needed shift

Do you ever suddenly crave a change? Need for something about your circumstances or the scenery to just be different? 

I do.

It doesn’t happen often but, every once in a while, my life as it is starts to feel frustratingly stagnant. 

In the past that feeling has had me gritting my teeth through the last few years of school, and later university. It’s pumped me up to change my hair, take on a new hobby, find new friends or dating prospects. Anything that I thought might make life interesting or fulfilling again. 

But when it found me this time around, my efforts to pick back up some abandoned hobbies, a more active social life over the summer, and even a drastic change in hairstyle didn’t help. (I shaved my hair if that helps communicate how drastic.) That stifling sensation of the sameness of my days was more than those simple changes could remedy this time around. Compounded as it was by the fact that after moving home from university almost five years ago, I was approaching my 27th birthday, and my fifth anniversary at the same job I got soon after graduating, still living back at home in the city I grew up in. As though I’d just been sitting stalled and idle over the years since.

That wasn’t the case. During those years I’d picked up new hobbies and worked towards self-set goals, met new people and made new friends, started driving lessons and after that bought my very own car. But all those efforts seemed to mean very little when I considered my life at the time. Though I had been dedicated to my personal life and growth at many points in those years past, after mentally and emotionally draining transitions into and then out of a world of pandemic and panic, and all that came with it, I was struggling to devote myself to much beyond the necessary. My life had taken on a rather dull and regular shape, as I focussed on work and weekend chores, only sporadically venturing out or spending time doing more than just indulging in social and other media. 

So as reminders of the passed and passing time approached, the pervasive notion that I had been wasting time triggered in me a desire to take action – resulting in those small and ultimately ineffective efforts I mentioned before. (That said, at least the short hair really suits me.) So I was left doing my best to push through the quiet despair, while I felt utterly impotent in actually addressing the issue.

But then an opportunity presented itself to do so one late August morning. Not that I knew at the time that this would be the thing to drag me out of my funk. 

On that Friday in August, I was laid up in bed with Covid, when a notification popped up on my phone screen to inform me that my next driving test had been rebooked for the next Friday.

It was unexpected, though really it shouldn’t have been. I am the one who downloaded and configured the settings of an app to automatically book a slot opened up by cancellation, to move my test up from early 2024. But I suppose I didn’t anticipate the reality of the app’s success. Especially after weeks of seeming inactivity. 

But it was more than the surprise that gave me pause. Firstly, let’s not forget, I had Covid at the time. Which had disrupted my driving lesson that week, and there were some manoeuvres I knew I needed to practice. And practice in my car with a willing family member wasn’t an option, because it was being repaired of the damage from months of disuse. 

However, even as I laid there shocked and anxious in the face of that phone notification, I felt compelled to go for it. Ready as I was for a change in my life, not even my aversion to another failure could hold me back. And so I proceeded to hastily make arrangements. I contacted my instructor who agreed to a long afternoon session the day before the test, with both the lesson and test set to occur after my quarantine period, and then arranged for an afternoon off work to make that lesson.

Six days later, I spent three hours with my driving instructor, dusting off my parking skills and reassuring myself of my abilities. Less than 24 hours later, I was setting off from the test centre, now with an examiner beside me. 

Shaky though my hands might have been, according to the examiner, he also saw like others before him that I am a good driver. And so I finally scored that pass, a success that was almost five years in the making.

Beyond the end of the road

It’s been about a month since the day I finally passed my practical driving test, and I find myself still basking in the success. Not just for the sake of the win itself; the change from green licence to pink, L plates to P plates. It’s about everything that the seemingly singular change affords me, which was underscored as early as my very first solo drive. 

Technically I was with my sister, but she is a non-driver so not “adult supervision”. But the important point is that out in my car with her, as we listened to our choices of music, driving through parts of our town that I’d not been for some time, and those I was seeing for the first time, I started to realise that I am unstuck. 

No longer am I limited to exploring the parts of my town that I can easily reach via public transport, and without incurring the penalty of pricey private hires. I’m also not tied to the timetables of others, and can avoid wait times for transport or limiting travel to when someone else can get me where I need to go. More significantly than that, I am no longer confined to my home or city, now with the licence and equipment that essentially allow me to pick up and go wherever I choose. I can go where I want, when I want, and even the thought is liberating. 

For now though, I find myself satisfied with the small freedoms driving now allows me, and how that has changed my circumstances from what they were before. I’m again considering joining a Roller Derby team in my city, something I couldn’t do when I had no means by which to regularly attend practice. In my friend groups of other drivers, we can start to revisit suspended ideas of road trips together and holidays in remote parts of the UK. Heck, I’m pleased with the fact that I can go to my local Morrisons for a shop as big as I’d like, without having to worry about a back-breaking walk home, while I’m encumbered with shopping bags.

It’s funny that now such large change is within my grasp, that the small things again suffice. But I suppose inching along is only frustrating because it’s not your choice to slow down and enjoy each little part of the journey. 

---

I’m back! Did you miss me.

If not, too bad. But thank you for making it to the end of the post anyway.

Will there be more soon? I’m really not sure, but I hope so. Even if no one else has, I’ve missed this blog, and hopefully my muse doesn’t abandon me again for so long after finding me again.

Till next time.