Driving in the UK

Alhamdulillah I just passed my driving license. I would love to say that it was a breeze, but actually it wasn’t. It was nerve wrecking. The roads in the UK are small and tight, with cars park along the roads. It also didn’t help that I decided to take the test for manual driven car, since a lot of (old) cars in the UK uses manual transmission, and it was 9 years ago since I drove manual transmission car in Malaysia. Still, all in all I managed to pass.

What struck me to write was the comment from my driving instructor (I had to take lessons with a driving instructor for 10 hours, and even then, I think I would have benefitted if I have more hours) who said that it was harder to teach people who have been driving from another country, than someone that has not driven before. I can agree to that, since ‘older’ driver normally have habits, that is normally not really aligned to the way of driving. Personally though, I also think that ‘older’ driver like myself have a hard time understanding instructions, since the instructions or way of driving for the test, in my opinion, are not what people normally do. For example in a driving test, driver is sometimes asked to stop, in a middle of nowhere and somewhere that would simply block and annoy other drivers. Yes, it is legal, but stopping at the main road would make it harder for people to drive by. There’s a few more quirks that irks me a bit but they escape me now.

There’s also the concept of hazard in driving, that doesn’t align with me much. This is more prominent in the theory test where the candidate is required to click the mouse when he/she sees a hazard, and it must not be too soon or too early; the candidate needs to click just as about the hazard ‘becomes’ a hazard. This process or change from ‘not-hazard’ to a hazard baffles me initially, because in railway and engineering safety, anything that presents the possibility/likelihood of damage, is a hazard. A car moving behind you, is a hazard, in my understanding. A car coming out of a junction, is a hazard in my understanding. You, driving a car, is a hazard.
But no, the idea of hazard for the driving tests is when an accident can happen if you do not do anything. Wouldn’t that be a mitigation though? Well it isn’t in the case of driving test. Anyways once I understand the ‘definition’ of hazards, I just swallow my disagreement and follow on. In the end I clicked and passed the theory test.

So my point is, not only the (bad) habit that prevents someone from performing well, but the different views and understanding can also become a hindrance. It pays to have everyone in the same page so that progress can be driven in the same direction (forgive the pun).

Thank you for reading.