Driven mad by road woes

3:36pm Monday 8th October 2007

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It is now almost a year since I started leaning how to drive. This is a fact I used to regard with some shame - though now I have resigned myself to the fact I will never be a good driver. Or even a competent one.

Blind spots, clutch control, reversing around corners - it all goes pretty much over my head - I still have problems NOT stalling at traffic light junctions!

I once entertained hopes that this would be rather endearing (à la Cher in Clueless) but now I feel it's a rather expensive shortcoming.

Considering how well publicised students' financial problems are, it seems more than a little unfair that driving lessons are so overpriced. I once expected to be going through the usual rite of passage in having my parents give me lessons but they - quite understandably - have refused to so, either due to the fear of imminent danger or my short temper when it comes to skills I can't master.

My major nemeses are still roundabouts, where I am prone to overly-long pauses - lengthy moments of trying to calculate the pros and cons of actually moving! Then of course there's my new archrival in parallel parking'. I feel compelled to argue that I'd rather drive around for hours looking for an appropriate parking spot than hazarding such a complicated move but I fear this would not go down well with any examiner!

Hill starts' and emergency stops' are also rather daunting - though I suspect my instructor values his recently-replaced clutch far too much to let me practice such moves on a regular basis.

He is perhaps a little crestfallen that his mantra care for the clutch' has fallen on deaf ears when it comes to me.

So I'm left licence-less, jealously watching peers drive past whilst I trudge along to school with an inexplicably heavy bag in rain, snow or hail. Or boiling heat - indeed all the seasons have come and gone whilst I try to get to grips with fourth gear and three-point turns.

Any time I do feel the shame of being such a poor driver I instead try to shift the blame on to others - namely boy racers overtaking me when I'm pushing 30, cyclists coming out of nowhere, confused elderly people who have yet to understand the purpose of indicator lights and even a rogue pizza-delivery-motorcyclist.

Yes, it's all too easy to blame others, leaving me in a comforting state of denial!