If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.
Certainly one poor Scot has made it his mission to persevere in the face of repeated failure to pass his driving test.
The lad has apparently set a new Scottish record after failing his test a staggering 36 times. Finally, after forking out £1,147, he passed on the 37th attempt. Hurray.
On the down side, he still has to pass the practical test. Oh. Well, good luck to him, but I'm not sure I'd jump at the chance of a lift, would you?
Mind you, he still has a way to go to beat the record number of practical driving tests failures. A London woman apparently clocked up 110 failed tests before presumably buying a bike.
Perhaps, it's just the nerves getting to him. I still remember the dread of sitting my driving test when I was 17. The test fell on the date I was due to leave for University but the night before, as I lay in my childhood bed for the last time, it was thoughts of my driving test which kept me awake, not leaving home.
The problem was you see I had never mastered the art of parallel parking. Test day dawned and my long-suffering dad took me to an industrial estate to do some last-minute intensive practice. After about 36 tries at wedging my mother's Micra into a particularly generous space I gave up and drove us home in a huff.
I arrived for my test with hopes low. They fell lower still when I was introduced to my examiner. His reputation preceded him. He was notorious in the town for three things; for being extremely strict, for extracting apparent delight from bellowing FAIL into the face of the sweaty-palmed would-be driver and lastly, for being very rotund.
The last quality was only a problem when you needed to change between first and second gear. Such was the vast acreage of his legs that they spilled over the edge of the passenger seat and a low gear change involved having to practically gouge the gear-stick through his flesh. Not ideal.
I can still remember being so up-tight throughout the entire test that my back never touched the seat at any point nor did my hands part from their Ten to Two position. I'm pretty sure I must have left an imprint of my moist brow in the front window.
Through some absolute fluke I wasn't asked to perform parallel parking and managed to get through the test successfully without having a meltdown or damaging the car. No, no, those treats came later.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article