AS rites of passage go, mine came pretty late.
Readers of a sensitive disposition - sorry, Mum - need not look away in fright. I'm talking here about passing my driving test.
Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the test becoming compulsory. UK Transport Minister Lord Ahmad gave it the aforementioned tag , saying: "The driving test is a significant rite of passage, giving greater freedom and independence to generations of people across Britain."
Well, perhaps. But for a sensitive 18-year-old, it was a significant source of embarrassment.
Unlike most of my mates, I failed the first time round. But it wasn't my fault; it was the car's, honest.
As I have mentioned here before, my first motor was an ancient VW Beetle, bought at auction not long after I started my first job. With the help of a long-suffering father and some fearless friends, I learned to drive in the Teutonic boneshaker.
The Beetle was great for tootling around the relatively quiet roads of Perthshire, where we were living, but she wouldn't do for the actual test. No seat belts, a wobbly steering column and, worse, a lack of fully functioning brakes meant it was deemed wiser to try for the full licence in a modern car. So, I took a top-up lesson with a local driving school, and booked their car, a two-year-old Mini, for the big day.
I was confident. In the company of friends, I had driven hundreds of miles over the preceding few months. I had memorised the Highway Code, and I knew my road signs, including the one that seems to be warning of low-flying motor cycles.
But I failed, largely because of a disastrous hill start. I couldn't get the dratted handbrake off.
I hadn't had a working one in the Beetle. It had become habit to stamp on the footbrake, ram the car into first and balance the clutch to move off, but that wouldn't be allowed on the test.
So I stopped on an incline when requested and yanked on the Mini's handbrake. When it was time to proceed, however, try as I might, I couldn't get the release catch to work.
After what seemed an eternity but was probably no more than five hours, the kindly examiner finally took pity, and did the needful for me. He was writing the fail slip before we had rolled to a halt at the test centre; I was the only one of my peers with a blot in the copybook.
Still, one should always try to look on the bright side. When I finally passed, six months later, it was all the sweeter. And the examiner no doubt dined out on the story for years.
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