It's late June, and I am no closer to wanting to get behind the wheel of a car and drive off somewhere than last year.
Confidence doesn't work like that; it is hard-earned and painful, but you get there. You have to work at it. You have to not overcomplicate and overthink it. Make a plan and a route, stick to that route, and don't let anyone stop you.
Trust me, I get it, but most people are not me.
I am a CP (Cerebral Palsy) sufferer, specifically right-sided hemiplegia, and the way my brain works is not like anyone else. Despite the commonality of Cerebral Palsy (18 million people worldwide have a form of Cerebral Palsy, with 160 thousand [130,000 adults and 30,000 children] in the UK); not one person has the exact same level of affected mobility or everyday hardship.
It took me 8, nearly 9 years to get here. I wanted to get to the stage where I could talk about my experience of getting my pink driver's (full) licence, to have a form of the independence I craved and dreamt of for years, and to get comfortable enough afterwards to share that experience without feeling like an utter failure for having taken so long.
Even now its hard to not let those feelings get in the way because of the two year long wait for the probation period to finish. I'll feel tonnes better knowing that my chances of redoing the whole thing for the third time will not happen.
It was a painful, bitter, and hard-won slog where my self-confidence was repeatedly sent to the ground level. My self-esteem was negatively affected, and my everyday challenge of gaining confidence in my driving took brutal beatings on top of hard beatings.
I should start back in 2014 as the DVLA (Drivers and Vehicle Licencing Agency) issued my green (provisional) licence in November before my 18th birthday. By Spring 20 the struggles became an unrelenting battle. I am in my A-Level year, where my grades count towards a place at University, and I have been with a Specialist Driving Instructor for around a year. The year before, I spent primarily learning the basics. It took me a while because my CP, which comes with a splash of neurodivergence just for added kicks, meant I needed longer to understand and retain what my Instructor was trying to teach me.
Even now, writing this post, said neurodivergence either drives me to distraction or hyperfocus so severely that I ignore everything, including my biological clock.
Yes, it did take that long, and even then, I had to take an assessment at the Mobility Centre in Derby to properly start learning how to drive.
Anyone who has experienced this can understand and empathise with why I'm choosing to not focus much attention on it.
Anyway... Spring 2016.
Spring 2016 was manic, as I needed to pass the theory test. Between getting through my A-Levels, I had to experience the soul-crushing nature of fighting to pass what is, on paper, a simple and easy multiple-choice quiz and simulation.
It wasn't simple; it isn't easy.
To pass the multiple choice, you have to reach the bar set at 86%.
To pass the hazard perception, you must get 59%, which doesn't sound like a hardship. I'm sorry, guys. A twist and small print can and does confuse those taking the test.
You can understand why and how so many kids/young adults feel like failures when a seemingly random computer test learns where so many go wrong and chucks in difficult to answer questions increasing in number with each test.
Why do so many struggle to continuously take and retake the test that might as well be a college-level Applied Maths exam? It is because of how difficult and emotionally taxing the test is to those who take it. While I congratulate those who don't experience this particular hardship, give it a rest on the gloating because to the rest, to those of us who return time and time again to these test centres, it is something to dread, and that is mainly or partly due to the many times we repeat and experience the same confidence destroying routine.
By March 2016, I was on Attempt 4 at the Cobridge Test Centre, beating myself up because of my previous test (Attempt 3). I don't know how, but I managed to pass my multiple choice but failed the hazard perception. Attempts 4 & 5 (March 2016 and April 2017) were a struggle. By Attempt 6 (June 2017), I had nearly given the whole idea of driving as a pipe dream, never to happen. What I didn't know was that pass rates varied by test centre across the country from 73.5% to 23.6% and you had to pick your test centre.
Fed up, dispirited, demotivated and reluctant to even make another attempt. Money spent on lessons to pass another test that I will never get to.
Pieces of paper telling me which areas kids have failed on, and our instructors cannot help because neither kid nor instructor can remember the questions they got incorrect - ... i.e. the oh-so-helpful table below the word FAILED on the same bit of paper is so useless it begs the question of: why bother?
More and more kids leaving with the same result and going to their families with the same words: I can't do this anymore. Theory pass rates on average - only 47.1% to 49.3 over the time I took it.
Attempt 9 (September 2018), and I'm starting my Third Year at University. I'm trying to live my life while it's stuck on pause.
The same routine, the same questions, the same computer-generated videos, the same feeling of failure that has become a familiar companion for three and a bit years.
My chances of passing at Cobridge might as well be in a stormdrain.
My instructor suggests trying a new centre because apparently, complaining to the company doing said tests is a brick wall since Pearsons have had complaints lodged against them for years, and no one with the authority wants to do anything about it?
Sounds like a plot twist in a novel, doesn't it?
A new centre - do I have a better chance?
Yes, as it turns out, because my next three retakes did not leave me wondering if the whole thing was worth the aftermath afterwards?
After graduating from Uni, it took until early autumn 2019 (Attempt 12) to get a piece of paper reading: You have PASSED this theory test... my third time at the Stockport Centre.
It turns out that all everyone who struggles to gain a pass from the Cobridge Test Centre—the theory test centre base for the Cobridge and Newcastle Driving Centres, all located within the boroughs of Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme—has to do to pass their test is head or choose another test centre location.
Ridiculous and honestly talking - the DVSA (Driving Standards Agency) should have investigated why and how so many young adults were failing at this one test centre and others with low pass rates.
Its bad enough the average for passing the theoretical portion of the Driving test is 9 Tests.
Yes, nine tests - that's £207 (£23 for one test) spent down the drain. I spent £276 to make that 86% pass bar over four years. Anyone and sundry can understand why kids may choose to spread out the costs over an extended period of time.
I'm now heading for the two Driving Centres to pass the assessed practical portion.
My first Practical test is in the following March, but what happens? Covid shuts down the country, and suddenly, there's a ticking clock somewhere for theory tests while the world is at a standstill. First lockdown goes over, and I went from 18 months with confidence to 14 months and no confidence, struggling to regain the lost confidence as driving instructors and pupils up and down the country scrambled to get themselves back to fighting fit after being told by those in authority that none were allowed to practice and - just for kicks there would be no extension on the life of the theory test.
The smallest mistake, even something that before Covid would have made allowances for, means an instant fail and return to the centre, and the examiners/assessors could not and did not seem to care that they were the main reason and cause of kids suffering in silence because if anything went wrong, the assessor ensured something else happened hereby removing the kids chance to protest or complain about said examiner.
Example 1: Travelling up a one way street and as I get to the junction and I'm on the left hand side, telling me to turn right and failing me for being in the wrong lane.
Example 2 - Personal Experience: Instructing me to turn right on a staggered crossroads and when the car opposite decides to go at the same time just as the road clears enough for me to go, slamming the dual break on just as I react, and then later following this up by causing me to stress so much about a maneuvre I go and get it wrong. Getting the results back and seeing it in black and white: Examiner had to take physical and verbal action, when they didn't and don't need to.
Leaving those like myself unable to do anything but accept... is a bitter pill to swallow.
Novembers lockdown made everything worse.
And the clock kept ticking.
Why the theory tests only last two years is because - according to those down in London who decided to write the two years into legislation, (meaning getting it changed involves an Act of Parliament), the theory needs to remain fresh in the kid's minds while they take their practical. In that case, please explain why and how I could pass said theory test using a copy of the AA's Highway Code published in 2007 and why there was no thought by said authorities to prioritise those who passed their tests before the country came to a standstill, and who most likely felt discriminated against, abandoned and left behind by those they placed their trust in to represent them.
There's a waiting list.
When I [finally] went from green to pink, the waiting time between theory and practical was 6 months; now, it is 4 to 5 months. This was due in part to the backlog caused by the first and second lockdowns, the panic and dread of having the theory test only last two years (which is not lengthy at all when you factor in the above waiting times), the backlash of so many kids/candidates having to retake and retake the test, and those like me whose tests expired and had to go through the entire process of retaking their theory tests just to give themselves a little more time to either get a more understanding assessor or find a different test centre altogether.
Coupled with those who had passed and whose tests hadn't expired... you can understand why everyone, from the kids to their families to their instructors, got frustrated by the actions of the assessors and their new rules.
If I didn't have CP - would it have been better? Possibly.
I wouldn’t have waited for my mobility assessment at Derby and wouldn’t have to wait to find a driving instructor with an adapted car. So I might have beaten covid to the test centre, when I realised you should change your test centre location. I might have taken something’s less literally and been more focussed and passed quicker. But I do have CP. I was supposed to have driving examiners with disability awareness (few and far between and in the case of Stoke determined to put you in a situation to fail you). Plus, I take my 2 year probation seriously probably making me a better and possibly more law-abiding driver than other new drivers (and some older ones).
I’ve done it but it shouldn’t be this hard, especially when many of the disabled community rely on cars for transport, and when apparently you can ignore a sight test and drive at 90yrs.
Perhaps instead of just penalising us as newbie drivers, the government should finally look at all the older drivers breaking the law and make them carry out a small retest after a certain age as mandatory! That would change the theory test pass mark from the 45.2% pass rate the governments statistics show currently for the UK 2023/2024 period.
* Note: When this is published, I will have celebrated a year of driving as a full licence holder.
