Wednesday 30 June 2010

Why driving is not for the mentally inept (ie; me)

I started learning to drive at the tender age of 17, as per usual (in the UK, that is).

I was terrible on my first lesson, of course, having never even got into the drivers seat of such a mind boggling machine before. But driving is hard. And learning to drive has been one of the toughest things I have done in. my. life.

My mind is the type of mind that goes everywhere at once with a single thought. Multi-tasking is difficult for a girl like me at the best of times, so handling a car overheats my brain after an hour or so.

I cannot begin to tell you how much money I have spent on driving lessons in these two years (yes, two) and to be honest, I'd rather not work it out. I think I would probably have a nervous breakdown.

On average it takes a person 40 hours to pass their driving test. For me, god knows how many, but I'd say it was nearing the 100 mark. On the plus side, at least I've had a lot of practise.

It took me five tests to pass. I attribute this large number of tests to my brain, yet again. It seems that I am very affected by the outside world when I drive. The first three times, I was too nervous to concentrate (although I did nearly pass the first time). Unfortunately that near pass made me more nervous about the test as I then cared more about passing it. Talk about your vicious circles.

Eventually I managed to calm myself down enough after my third attempt, where I almost gave up entirely after failing where my twin had succeeded. The fourth attempt was atrocious and doesn't bear thinking about. And on the fifth, success.

I am now the proud owner of a shiny new pink driving licence.

My brain has not yet made a full recovery from the shock of Actually Passing.

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