THE GOOD BUCK

Wrong congrats card there, it’s actually a pass! It was horrible as usual, an hour of pure stress and nerves. I drove up to Liverpool and I wasn’t too bad, I thought. I had yet another instructor taking me up there, a woman this time. She was OK, but she set the cones too close together when I asked to practise my reverse, so it was really hard and I made a balls-up of my first attempt. Not the way to inspire confidence. On the other hand, she did inspire confidence in another way. Instead of being there watching every move you make straight off the bat she said " the keys are in the truck, you take it round and reverse it into place, I’ll set up the cones." I was waiting for her to come out and keep her eye on me but she didn’t so I drove off on my own. So that was good, first time in the truck for over a month and I was setting off on my own. I drove it too Liverpool, and was OK, but by no means wonderful. Then I got there and found out it was Donna who was going to be my examiner. It was she who failed me the first time, with a record number of faults marked. She is supposed to be the easiest person to pass with though (Don’t tell her I said so) and although I made a few mistakes I didn’t clip any pavements, run over any pedestrians, or crash the truck. So by the end of that seemingly interminable hour I still wasn’t sure which way it had gone. I was even more nervous because although she did take me on some narrow roads, and make me take the truck around some hideously sharp corners (where if you don’t watch out you swing the front end out nice and wide, start to straighten up, then the pavement juts out a bit and you clip it and fail) and presumably I did all the requisite exercises, but I felt everyone else took me on worse routes. I was thinking that if I hadn’t passed with Donna, on such a relatively easy course, maybe I really wasn’t going to pass, ever. Then she said I’d passed! She went on to tell me it was by the skin of my teeth (15 minor driver errors, 16 is a fail) but by that time I was beaming. She asked if I’d done any training since my last test, I said I hadn’t. She told me she would never take a test without practising first (fine if you have infinite cash) but that she was willing to look beyond how I’d done to how I would be in practise. She had felt safe and that the truck was under control the whole time, so I would be safe to drive and polish my technique on the road. Although Donna is supposed to be the easiest one to […]

Here we go again, test tomorrow! I’ve not been in a truck for about a month so I am in the self-doubt part of the unending driving test cycle. The pattern is thus; self doubt, bad nerves and uneasy sleep the night before, tense, controlled panic before getting in the truck again, slowly relaxing driving to the test centre, hideous barely controlled panic as the test begins, resignation when I make a mistake and think I’ve failed, more resignation when I have failed, appraisal, then an unfounded optimism that I could easily correct those silly mistakes. And repeat. I have been battling with the thought that I can’t pass. I combat it with the thought that although the long established drivers at work may have passed in one or two attempts the test was easier then. Also the fact that one of the drivers has a lad who took his training and only passed it last year, on his fifth attempt. So although I may be struggling, it’s no more than he was doing and at the fifth asking he passed. Tomorrow is attempt number four for me. I know what I did wrong last time, and I won’t fall into any of the little traps they have set before. It is possible. I just need a clean run. Once I’ve got the bloody license all will be well. I can run people over left, right, and centre and no one will bat an eyelid. Well, maybe not too many pedestrians, too often but you see what I mean. Watch this space. I have other stuff to relate but it will have to wait until tomorrow, can’t focus on anything but the cyclic nature of my worry and worry-combating thoughts. Later, Buck.