Peering out my ‘office’ window, I’ve just had the pleasure – well around 30 minutes of pleasure, watching a learner driver trying to reverse park!
Actually, some pleasure tainted with vague unease as the car she’s pulling up next to each time and trying to park behind is in fact Hansie the fat red Volvo!
It’s been many years since I passed my drivers test and I have no doubt that I could/would in fact fail another attempt at this – only because of bad habits learned such as crossing hands on the steering wheel (which i notice she's not doing which makes parking look REALLY hard) not making 3 trips around the outside of the car each time I drive to check 20 different things first and any number of other odd things i still believe to be included for sketchy learner drivers because let's face it, we're all dreadful when we start out.
Saying that, I don’t remember finding reverse parking quite as difficult as this poor dear clearly is and in fact the inspector on my test day wasn’t even watching me park! He was chatting to a work colleague and once I’d finished, parking left and right – I actually hooted at him to let him know I was done! He merely raised his eyebrows, hopped in and told me to move into the road for my driving test - radical traffic roundabouts (circles where I come from) 3 point turns and hill starts! Incidentally, that doesn’t mean I can’t park – actually, I park exceptionally well and RJB will attest to that. Hansie is long car but I’ve been known to squeeze into the smallest spaces - without touching anything I shouldn't!
This poor instructor has the patience of a saint – she’s into 40 minutes now and is STILL turning her wheels towards the front half of my car first to reverse into the middle of the road and then back towards the curb – as ineffective now as at the first attempt and clearly no learning curve! Might have to intervene, Hansie is getting nervous!
Ciao
NB
