Today I am struck by a bit of atypical nervousness. I went for a driving lesson. And if that was a driving test, I would have failed. Twice. That is not exactly how I envisioned the experience, to be honest.
I mean... I am generally a careful driver, I don't take chances, I give way when I should, I don't speed. Well not too much. 'Speed' is a matter of perception, really. If I consistently drove 60km/h in Johannesburg streets I wouldn't have had any speeding tickets. If I do the same here, I would lose my license, or simply not get it. It is REALLY hard to drive 50km/h downhill!
Then there's the roundabouts. We don't have them in South Africa. I remember seeing something similar in some town one day, and I think Pretoria has two, but not near anywhere I used to drive. An in any case, they're not roundabouts. They're circles. Or traffic circles, if you must. What type of name is 'roundabout' for anything? Just imagine someone saying: I'm going to take a driveabout the roundabout before I go for a walkabout!
Well in my defense, I didn't fail anything about the roundabouts. Even in a 4WD it would be hard to drive OVER them - common practice for some circles in Gauteng - since these ones are not merely paint on the road, but proper circles with lawn and trees and occasionally a kangaroo in the middle. I mean, proper roundabouts.
Then there is the parking issue - which once again, will most likely be fine as I won't be driving a 4WD. So I should be able to control the urge to drive up and over curbs. And strangely enough, the driving instructor was very perturbed when I asked about doing a reverse parking manœuvre on the RIGHT-hand side. 'Why on earth would you want to do that??' I have wondered about that many times years ago when I had to master that tricksy one myself. Of course that is for parking that side in a one-way street.
But apparently it isn't required in Australia. Smile. And neither is parallel parking. Another smile.
Then there was just the little issue of the 'Busses-only' sign. Mental note to self: If instructor instructs to go left and sign says no cars, don't follow instructions. That's a tough one. The sign can't hit me over the head for disobeying instructions.
As the instructor and I parted ways, he gave me another piece of valuable information: the South Port testing station is much more difficult than Helensvale. There are roadworks, unexpected signs, missing stop-street signs, and a pass rate of only 50% compared to 70% at Helensvale.
And yes, we are booked to go for our tests at South Port.
But that's fine, really, I know how statistics work. It means if me and my husband take the test, one of us will likely fail. So if I could get my husband to fail, statistically speaking I would have a better chance to succeed. Sigh. Not really an option... On the other hand... Let's say I were to fail, just maybe, maybe, I could get a chauffeur...
I mean... I am generally a careful driver, I don't take chances, I give way when I should, I don't speed. Well not too much. 'Speed' is a matter of perception, really. If I consistently drove 60km/h in Johannesburg streets I wouldn't have had any speeding tickets. If I do the same here, I would lose my license, or simply not get it. It is REALLY hard to drive 50km/h downhill!
Then there's the roundabouts. We don't have them in South Africa. I remember seeing something similar in some town one day, and I think Pretoria has two, but not near anywhere I used to drive. An in any case, they're not roundabouts. They're circles. Or traffic circles, if you must. What type of name is 'roundabout' for anything? Just imagine someone saying: I'm going to take a driveabout the roundabout before I go for a walkabout!
Well in my defense, I didn't fail anything about the roundabouts. Even in a 4WD it would be hard to drive OVER them - common practice for some circles in Gauteng - since these ones are not merely paint on the road, but proper circles with lawn and trees and occasionally a kangaroo in the middle. I mean, proper roundabouts.
Then there is the parking issue - which once again, will most likely be fine as I won't be driving a 4WD. So I should be able to control the urge to drive up and over curbs. And strangely enough, the driving instructor was very perturbed when I asked about doing a reverse parking manœuvre on the RIGHT-hand side. 'Why on earth would you want to do that??' I have wondered about that many times years ago when I had to master that tricksy one myself. Of course that is for parking that side in a one-way street.
But apparently it isn't required in Australia. Smile. And neither is parallel parking. Another smile.
Then there was just the little issue of the 'Busses-only' sign. Mental note to self: If instructor instructs to go left and sign says no cars, don't follow instructions. That's a tough one. The sign can't hit me over the head for disobeying instructions.
As the instructor and I parted ways, he gave me another piece of valuable information: the South Port testing station is much more difficult than Helensvale. There are roadworks, unexpected signs, missing stop-street signs, and a pass rate of only 50% compared to 70% at Helensvale.
And yes, we are booked to go for our tests at South Port.
But that's fine, really, I know how statistics work. It means if me and my husband take the test, one of us will likely fail. So if I could get my husband to fail, statistically speaking I would have a better chance to succeed. Sigh. Not really an option... On the other hand... Let's say I were to fail, just maybe, maybe, I could get a chauffeur...
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| Driving Mrs Lamb... |
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