[braillediver]

“I took my driving test today and I did not pass. I do not blame it on the examiner, but he was somewhat mean (though I think that they are told to be like that).”

"I actually refused to do it because I did not think I could do it safely."

????

You don't get a license so you can then practice. Are you only ever going to drive forward?


“Get your behind out of the house ,away from the damn keyboard , and practise your driving skills before you hurt someone !”

rickcr42’s right on the money with that statement.


On the bright side you’re probably dangerous to yourself and others if you were allowed to drive at the present time so we’re all safer until you learn to drive properly.


Mitch

 

[PinkFloyd]

You will pass next time....... be relaxed and just drive your drive and make sure you keep pretending to look in the mirror at what's behind you (the examiners and general public like that) Look at the examiner as a passenger in your car and not as some "all seeing all doing" sage.

Give him a comfortable ride and you'll pass your test. Once you've passed your test don't think you're a good driver........ bad move. You've passed a very basic test and you'll become a good driver only through experience and many years on the road. You can also become a bad driver through bad habits from day one so keep that in mind also.

If you want to be a good driver understand what you are driving........ get to know your car from top to bottom and service it yourself....... your car is an extension of your legs....... get to know it and learn how to love it and keep it in good shape and learn how to drive it and avoid smashing into other vehicles.

Pinkie.

(I passed the UK "advanced" driving test 16 years ago which involved giving a running commentary to two policemen on what I was doing and what I was seeing 4 miles along the road etc.) Handy to have this as it reduces your insurance premiums......... I pay about £70 for fully comprehensive insurance with full no claims bonus protection.

 

[Stephonovich]

Pinkie, do you mean 70 pounds a month, or every 6 months? If it's a month, man, you Brits get pounded with car insurance too?! On top of your outrageous gas, excuse me, petrol prices... 70 pounds right now is about $130. So if it's every 6 months, that's only $260 a year, which is dang good for full comprehensive. I think my parents pay about $300 every 6 months for full comprehensive on one car, and collision on our other car, and the truck. BTW, adding me on (as the primary driver of the truck, mind you, which is the oldest and cheapest vehicle we have) more than doubled the insurance. It's like $700 every 6 months now. (also, FYI, if I were to be added as the primary driver of our '97 Dodge Intrepid R/T, the insurance would be $1200 per 6 months, IIRC)

walli, I agree, a car's handling in the snow is a good measure of it's overall performance. Weight distribution, FWD/RWD/AWD, auto/manual, and, of course, the amount of power all have a lot to do with it. And your tires. Our Escort, however, still does very sucky in the snow. It's too light, methinks. Our Intrepid probably outweighs it 2:1, and flies right through mud and snow, but the Escort will out handle it on gravel or pavement any day. And this is the R/T version of the Intrepid, mind you. (more power, and more importantly, bigger wheels and stiffer suspension) Still, as long as the road is packed enough, and there's no drifts, the Escort is a blast to drive. As I said, it's insanely easy to get out of a slide in it, which makes it so much fun. The truck, OTOH, while it's frighteningly easy to slide, it's also a bit more difficult to recover. So I have fun by locking in the front hubs and blasting through 4 foot drifts instead

Also, have any of you done emergency control techniques? Such as deliberately getting into a slide to recover, going mudding, using 4x4 (if applicable), doing 1 point turns, (aka half circles) high speed cornering, threshold braking, (you pansies with ABS need not apply) or anything like that? Very useful stuff to know. Never know when you might need it.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[wallijonn]

$300 every 6 months means you live in a town or out in the boonies, no?

When I had my SUV (Montero) I never plowed thrown snow banks because I never knew what was under the snow (like a fire hydrant). And if the snow was that high it was usually because the plows built it up. So I only plowed through my driveway.

 

[Mr.PD]

I had to run into the deep snow on the edge of a road to get my pickup to stop in time. Steep down hill into a dip, solid ice, some nut with an El Camino had driven into this big dip in the road and couldn't get up either direction. It's like a half a mile up hill both ways, and 100 feet of flat at the bottom. He was stuck at the bottom, and I was coming back on a beer run, going too fast, but not expecting anybody else on this back mountain road in the middle of nowhere. I ended up pulling the guy out of there.

Lots of drift busting. A couple of drift stuckings too.

When my oldest boy got his license, we took a Ford Probe GT out that winter to teach him how to drive on ice. Abandoned parking lot. I had him just drive around and I would grab the E brake and make the car slide. After a while he got pretty good at getting it going straight again. So we hit the road for an all day drive around. He finally stressed out on a really slick road and wanted me to drive. I didn't think it was so slick, until I got out of the car and fell on my butt.

 

[Wmcmanus]

"I did not pass" means "I flunked!"... and some day you'll see how funny that is (in a self-effacing way). Now that we have that out of the way, I flunked on my first attempt also (some 25 years ago). Oh, I knew the rules. Too well, it would seem! The rule that I cited was, "But sir, it is LEGAL to turn left FROM a one way street ONTO another one way street!" His reply was, "Yes, but you almost ran over Mr. Jenson (the local jeweler, who was walking across the street at that very moment). Hey, all I caught was his hip!!!

 

[PinkFloyd]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stephonovich Pinkie, do you mean 70 pounds a month, or every 6 months? (-:Stephonovich

£73.90 for 1 years fully comprehensive with no claims bonus protection. I also live in an area with zero crime levels which also brings the price way down.

Pinkie.

 

[Stephonovich]

walli, yeah, we live in the boonies. 5 miles from the nearest town, which has a whopping population of 1,000 people. Closest big city is Sioux City, Iowa, which is 30 miles away, and has about 30,000.

Pinkie, all I can say is that you're insanely lucky. Although your petrol prices probably even everything out. We pay about $1.60 a gallon here. (About .87 pounds, or 180 something pence, if there's 240 pence to a pound... not up much on British currency, sorry)

(-:Stephonovich

 

[GlowWorm]

Well don't go cryin' to your momma. Just learn from your mistakes (seems like you have), and try it again.

 

[aerius]

I passed all the tests on the first try, perfect on the written test, perfect on the G2 road test, and got deducted a few marks for taking turns a bit wider than needed on my G road test. I wanted to make damn sure I wasn't cutting any corners since a lot of the lines on the road were worn out and not really visible.

The G test which is the one for the full license was a killer when I took it, it was estimated that something like 3/4 of the people taking it in my area failed, but I didn't think it was that bad if you knew what you were doing. I had to do parallel parking on a hill, both uphill and downhill, parallel park on the left side of a one way street, do several 3-point turns, u-turns, 2-point turns, angled parking, back into a parking space (surprising how many people can't do that), merge onto a highway, navigate a busy mall parking lot, cross railroad tracks, overall the test took about an hour. To be honest I didn't see what was so hard about it, parallel parking on the left instead of right side of a street was unexpected but I dealt with it fine. The test guy was real fun too, he looked like a secret service agent and did not say a single word other than to give instructions, and to say "you passed".

But the thing is I view passing the test as only the beginning, I now have to drive for the rest of my life without getting into an accident, that is the real challenge. That's why I've taken courses on skid control, and plan on taking a few race driving courses when I have the money for it. This is why I get to know my car, know what the car can do, know what it's limits are and how it handles so that I can adjust my driving style to it. Driving is something I take very seriously, not only are you responsible for your life and the lives of anyone else in your car, you are also responsible for everyone else on the road, drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, everyone. One goof and many lives can easily be ruined or ended.