Amber. Red. Shit.It was in my fourth driving lesson I found myself at the front of a queue at a red traffic light on a slight hill.
It was one of those situations where you know something bad is going to happen, but you are defenceless to do anything about it. You just have to sit and wait. It was like that time I burnt out the centre of our garden and just had to wait for my parents to come home and discover it.
Green! GO, GO, GO! Accelerator down violently, foot straight off the clutch and…stall.
This is when the beeping started - a line of angry London motorists being held up by a 26-year-old learner driver. And to make it worse, as I reset the engine and re-applied the handbrake, the lights turned to red once more.
But John wasn’t going to stand for that sort of aggression. The window came down, he turned his head and with two fingers raised firmly in the air started to shout a barrage of abuse, the words of which I couldn't quite catch.
It was one of those situations where you know something bad is going to happen, but you are defenceless to do anything about it. You just have to sit and wait. It was like that time I burnt out the centre of our garden and just had to wait for my parents to come home and discover it.
Green! GO, GO, GO! Accelerator down violently, foot straight off the clutch and…stall.
This is when the beeping started - a line of angry London motorists being held up by a 26-year-old learner driver. And to make it worse, as I reset the engine and re-applied the handbrake, the lights turned to red once more.
But John wasn’t going to stand for that sort of aggression. The window came down, he turned his head and with two fingers raised firmly in the air started to shout a barrage of abuse, the words of which I couldn't quite catch.
I think that angered them more though because for the next minute the beeping didn’t stop.
But that didn't intimidate John. He just turned to me and calmly said: “Don’t worry. Make the bastards wait.”
You can imagine the panic I was in now. To keep a line of angry traffic waiting at a traffic light twice would be seriously bad news. With my hands shaking and beads of sweat dripping off my brow, I slowly moved away.
Haha. I only learnt last year, no worries, you'll catch on fast.
ReplyDeleteAbout the veering, yeah, I had that too. Again, practice will make it better. But the 10-2 position wasn't really working for me so I hold the steering with one hand now and keep it straight.
Also, the first time I started learning how to drive (at 16) I stalled the car during rush hour at a major traffic signal. I got so freaked out that I refused to take any more lessons. And now, whenever a car stalls at an intersection, I wonder if it's a kid learning how to drive and try not to get so pissed off.