Your Driving Test. What do you remember of it?

[Eddie Honda]

Some thing I think most of you d realise is they teach you not to use your gears to slow down unless you really need to

Brakes to slow. Gears to go. It's been like that for more than 30 years. Of course there's going down hill and engine braking, but how often is there a really hilly test route?

[treehugger]

True.

[LynehamHerc]

Virtually nothing. I remember it took me two attempts to pass and the first time I went out on my own in my dad's Viva, I got in the wrong lane at a busy junction and semi panicked. It was 50 years ago though.

About the only other thing I remember is that soon after some friends and I went in it to Scarborough and I had the choke out all of the time. He'd never said anything about it and my instructor's car was always warmed up so I never used it. Yep, stupidity ruled.

[59Impala]

I started to learn to drive in October 1971, my parents had given me driving lessons for my birthday. The driving school was the same one that my dad had used back in about 1957 and amazingly I had the same instructor, he must have remembered our surname as it's not very common. The car was a Mk1 Escort 1100 and thus off I went learning on the mean streets of SE London, at night in rush hour traffic as my lessons were after school. I took my test in I think February 1972 from the Lee test centre., I thought it went well despite the examiner (W C Smith) being a miserable old sod. He kept looking at his watch then when the test ended he told me I had failed on two things, touching the kerb when reversing on the three point turn and use of brakes and gears when approaching a junction. Then he got out of the car and ran up the road because it was time for his lunch at the cafe which is why he kept looking at his watch, he didn't want to miss out on the spotted dick and custard. My instructor was surprised that I had failed so I told him that they guy just wanted his lunch. He also said that at the driving school they had bets on who would pass and that I was by far the best driver on their books. Anyway a few weeks later my test is rebooked for about 9.30am and guess who the examiner is? Yep miserable W C Smith. He asks me to read out the number of a Farina Oxford, think it was his car as it was the same car on the first test. Onto the test, all went well and I knew I had passed when I was on the South Circular but easing off the gas as taught when passing crossroads he said come on now we're on the main road. Thus it was that I was unleashed and a little while later bought my first car, a 1962 Anglia.

[mercrocker]

The fat bloke that taught me was the same fella who my parents both used as well.....Being me I refused to go with their recommendation and used another place that frankly almost put me off driving - well, legally, anyway. Twice the bloke hit the dual-controls because I got too close to a car in front (in almost stationary traffic) - the second time I got out and fucked off home before asking my Mum to get hold of her instructor...

I suppose in a way I was unteachable and like a few of us on here was driving around quite happily with sundry unqualified front passengers and several highly illegal night time joy rides (the cars weren't nicked but might as well have been....) as well as bombing Herald, Anglia and A35 MOT failures around the local pits on a Sunday afternoon. See, the Seventies weren't all bad......

[bub2006]

Some thing I think most of you d realise is they teach you not to use your gears to slow down unless you really need to

Brakes to slow. Gears to go. It's been like that for more than 30 years. Of course there's going down hill and engine braking, but how often is there a really hilly test route?

Hilly test route? Ask my wife,she did her test just outside buxton

[DodgeRover]

Oh god, trauma!
BTW I learned to drive quite late, this century. Some thing I think most of you d realise is they teach you not to use your gears to slow down unless you really need to, as some body worked out that brake parts are less damaging to produce for the environment than clutch parts. Eco friendly driving.

Which is of course exactly the opposite of what you would expect and probably the reason people have issues with brake fade when getting out of a car that will virtually drive itself

[AMCrebel]

Oh god, trauma!
BTW I learned to drive quite late, this century. Some thing I think most of you d realise is they teach you not to use your gears to slow down unless you really need to, as some body worked out that brake parts are less damaging to produce for the environment than clutch parts. Eco friendly driving.

Which is of course exactly the opposite of what you would expect and probably the reason people have issues with brake fade when getting out of a car that will virtually drive itself

I haven't driven a car with brake fade for more than 40 years. Things are just so much better made nowadays.
I've adopted the "new" method of not changing down through the box as I come up to lights and junctions - it makes sense to me. The old method was taught in an era of single circuit drum brakes so I don't really think it applies unless you're driving something really old with marginal brakes.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Newbury test centre, May 1985, passed first time in a Rover 213S.

[SiC]

Newbury test centre, Oct 2003, passed first time in a Renault Clio II 1.2 16v.