I’m on the road ...to nowhere!

by Maeve Quigley

ISTARTED learning to drive in the last century — and still don’t have a full licence. I am ashamed to say it because I’m still the holder of my provisional licence and the latest attempt to crack the mirrorsignal-manoeuvre code has not gone well.

Back in my 20s, I started on a journey which I thought would culminate with a few months’ hard work and finally a full driving licence. Little did I know that two decades on I would still be on a provisional having been ignominiously dumped by my latest driving instructor… ‘for safety reasons’.

I’ve had a few of them, I must admit, and I have poured thousands into various driving schools, only to end up disappointed. First on the list was when I lived in Belfast. Chain-smoking Joe had taught other people I knew how to drive but in the end I had to escape due to the fog of cigarettes in his car — even though at the time I was fond of a crafty fag myself.

I ended up working in my home town of Derry for a while, where new instructor Paul skilfully got me through my first ever test. I was nervous as hell, sweat was running down my back in rivers but I managed to get through it, racking up only a few black marks and a ‘D’ for dangerous. Well, I had pulled out in front of a car trying to get a round a corner.

All I could do was laugh with relief when I got out of the car, to the point where poor Paul saw my happiness and thought, by some miracle, I had actually passed.

Back in Belfast a few months later, I decided I might be better off being taught by a woman, someone who understood a bit more the tension I was under. And Sally was great. For a while. Then she got pregnant… and very, very grumpy. I blamed the hormones, it was nothing to do with my skill set. I was sure of it.

Next was Seamus, a man whose personality was akin to that of Fr Stone in the famous Father Ted episodes. He was kind, he was patient and he never got flustered. I should have stuck with Seamus as he was getting me there. I was nearly ready. But fate intervened and caused me to up sticks for a new life in Dublin, where public transport was at a premium.

Working as a journalist, people tell you a car is an essential part of your kit. And it is… but what if you just can’t manage it? I often equate it with playing snooker — my hand/eye coordination isn’t the best so it’s not something I’m great at, therefore I don’t play it. But driving is different. People expect you to do it for the most part.

So the move to Dublin was somewhat of a blessing as my initial showbiz beat involved plenty of taxis and public transport around town. Although there was that horrendous bus journey from Derry to Sligo and then on to Mayo on St Stephen’s Day in an effort to find Shane Filan before his wedding day. I survived thanks to a kindly photographer picking me up in Castlebar and ferrying us both around the wilds of Cong.

Getting home to my parents was a four-hour bus journey and it worked for a while, although being a slave to a timetable and the sweaty horror of a steamy, packed bus with no windows often grated.

But as time went on, I decided to try and put my toe back into the water. I bought a car. Now, there was no way I was ever going to get into it and drive around on an ‘L’ plate by myself. It was one of the laws here that I just couldn’t fathom, especially since someone I knew had never been in a car before, bought herself one and on her maiden voyage promptly reversed it into a wall.

So the Renault Clio was to be the answer to my prayers. I got the car and then I got myself an instructor. A few more, in fact, from a couple of different driving schools. As we changed areas, I moved instructors. And along came Anthony, from one of the most money-grabbing schools I have ever encountered. Each lesson was two hours long, at €110 a pop, and I was out driving constantly. If I cancelled the lesson, I had to cough up the fee.

In fact, at one point during severe snow, gardaí warned people not to make any unnecessary journeys. So that was that, I thought, no driving today. Minutes later Anthony arrived at my door to take the lesson. I went out… what else could I do?

Every driver we passed shook their heads and flashed their lights. I know how to drive in deep snow now — you start off in a higher gear, if you must know — in fact, it actually suited me because my natural Driving Miss Daisy persona suited the slow speeds and left me less terrified than normal.

There were incidents, I’m not going to lie. One in particular saw me stopped dead in the middle of Dublin’s Darndale roundabout with cars whizzing past beeping aggressively while I wept at the wheel and Himself tried to calm me down.

Another was on a visit home when, while encountering the fear on one of Derry’s very hilly hill starts I demanded ‘Change places!’ of the other half as the terror gripped me. So we did, in the middle of a line of traffic. There was no other way out.

That’s something for you driving experts to note — all the beeping and hooting in the world doesn’t help any driver whose blood is frozen with fear and you are stuck to the spot, gripping the steering wheel with sweaty palms but seeing no way out except certain death.

In fact, it’s not going to make any driver get better or go faster, so maybe bear that in mind the next time you feel like honking your way out of a jam.

And this is part of the problem. I’m a mild-mannered writer. But the minute I sit behind the wheel of a car, I feel like a killer. As I push down on the clutch, the fear rises that I’m going to kill you, your child, your granny, your dog and possibly myself as I’m let loose behind the wheel of a lethal machine.

The weird thing is that I have no problem cycling a bike and I’ve travelled across Europe and back as a pillion passenger on a Vespa. But put me in charge of my destiny, and effectively yours, and I will crumble into a million tiny pieces of nerves.

And there’s the additional joy that learning to drive for so long has not only made me a nervous driver, I’m now a nervous passenger, ready to throw up on the M50 if people are changing lanes or if we get too near a truck.

Anyway, I was close to doing my test again when my mum got sick. Anthony tried to convince me to leave her death bed to continue my lessons, but that was a time when I happily parted with the fee to be with her. Then a cavalcade of family issues began that sent life into another spin. We discovered my dad had dementia and driving was the last thing on my mind.

I could have done with being able to drive as I spent every second weekend travelling to the North for a number of years. My long-suffering partner also wished I had persevered

When I sit at the wheel, I feel like a killer I’ve a natural Driving Miss Daisy persona

as he was lumbered with all of the driving — and basically still is.

I did a test to continue with my provisional a couple of years ago, coached by Himself’s mam, who is a very patient teacher as she only learned to drive at the age of 60 and sailed through with flying colours. I also had one lesson with the instructor who has just fired me.

At that time I thought she was the answer to my prayers as I managed not only to get around the course, but also reverse successfully around a corner. I was miles out from the kerb but I still did it.

She told me: ‘If only I had had longer, I would have got you through. Two or three weeks would have done it.’ After getting around the course relatively unscathed, I was determined to continue but the minute I had the new provisional in my hand, I went back to my old ways and avoided getting behind the wheel like the plague.

Cut to this year and once more the test was looming. I rang Bridget to see if she was still taking people on lessons. She was, so off we went. One of my lovely friends also took me out and we sailed happily around for an hour and a half. She told me, ‘You can actually drive.’

My first lesson with Bridget went well — I had confidence from the hours I’d spent with my friend. But then we developed a communication problem. ‘Pull in under the trees,’ she’d say and I would. But unfortunately it was the wrong set of trees and I’d taken the corner with no indicator on.

‘We’re going straight she’d say. ‘Okay.’ ‘That’s it… right behind this car.’ So I flicked on the right indicator. ‘I told you we were going straight! Why are you indicating?’ she shouted.

‘You said “right, behind this car…”’

She insisted my three-point turns were too slow — I thought it didn’t on,’ matter as long as you managed the manoeuvre but it appears not. She didn’t like taking me out in her car and although I booked her for the test she told me she wouldn’t allow it to be done if she didn’t think I was ready.

So I cancelled it at my expense, much to the horror of my friend who was instructing me and my other half, who felt I could have done it. But the creeping fear was becoming overwhelming and the lessons before work were leaving me shattered both physically and spiritually. I felt Bridget kept giving me too many instructions, to the point where my brain would explode. She may well think differently. The end came when a right turn had her grabbing the wheel to which I was clinging on for dear life while she shouted ‘Move! Move!’ at poor old terrified me, stuck to the spot in a blind panic.

I booked another lesson but in the run up to it I tried to figure out a way to dump her. What would I say? How could I get out of it? I had a sore arm from the wheel dragging so I decided I was just going to say my arm hurt and I couldn’t drive, which wasn’t a lie.

But instead, on the morning of my birthday, I got the aforementioned text. Bridget was breaking up with me. ‘I will have to cancel the next lesson as it’s not working out… for safety reasons,’ she added. She hoped I would have a better outcome with a different instructor, she said, and wished me the best.

And so she confirmed I am the dangerous killer I always thought I was. The question is, what do I do now? Do I persevere and get a test before I have to re-sit my theory exam? Or do I give it all up as a bad job and stick to the buses?

In the past two decades I’ve spent thousands and I’ve only failed my test twice — a lot less failing than some who are now on the road. I’m a determined person and I am loathe to let anything beat me but perhaps God’s plan for me involved a chauffeur and a town car but it just got a bit mixed up in the planning stages. If there’s an instructor out there with the patience of a saint and an unflappable demeanour — or indeed, someone who likes a challenge — I would urge them to get in touch.

Until then, I might just have to rely on the designers of these driverless cars to get the finger out...

ALL names of instructors have been changed. Do you have your own driving disaster story? Let us know at driving@dailymail.ie

She shouted ‘Move! Move!’ as I clung on