Categories: uncategorized
Date: 14 February 2007 22:44:32
To Wallington for the ADI Part 2 (practical test of driving ability). I arrived in plenty of time, but was initially unable to park as somebody taking his normal L test (in a car from a well known national driving school) was having great difficulty reversing the car into the only spare parking bay. I had half a mind to approach him and say "give me a call in about an hour and I'll teach you how to do it properly".
Having found somewhere to park, I had one last cigarette before making my way to the test centre waiting room. At the appointed time, the Supervising Examiner emerged from his office and called me in. The examiner I had is a guy called Martin. I'd heard a lot about him, all of it good, and now I've met him I can confirm that he is an incredibly nice guy. The whole test felt very relaxed and we chatted and joked together throughout.
So, we started by driving around the quiet back roads where all but one of the manouvres were carried out, namely the turn in the road (or "three point turn"), reverse around corners to left and right and the emergency stop. Then we went out for the long drive on various roads, including town, country and motorway.
At one point, I thought I'd blown it. Driving up a country lane, I had a near miss with a van coming in the other direction at a fairly high speed. In fact, all I got for that was a minor fault for not checking my mirror whan I pulled up sharply to avoid him.
Towards the end of the test, about half a mile from the test centre, we were stuck in a queue of traffic due to roadworks, so I took the opportunity to glance at the examiners test sheet out of the corner of my eye. I could see only 4 marks on the sheet and none of them were in the "serious" column, so at that point, I realised that as long as I didn't do anything stupid in the remaining few minutes I was home and dry. When we got back to the test centre car park, there was one manouvre left, and that was to reverse into a parking bay. The examiner obviously wasn't too concerned how well (or otherwise) I performed this manouvre, because I noticed that before I even started reversing into the bay that he was already filling out the green piece of paper given out to successful candidates.
Even so, I still needed to hear the words that were to come. And they did.
"Switch off the engine please, that's the end of the test and I'm delighted to tell you that you've passed"
DELIGHTED!! Normally, they say "I'm pleased..." but he said "Delighted"!
I have the application form for my temporary licence as I prepare for Part 3, and hopefully I'll be back instructing at the beginning of March. It's not over yet though. I've one more exam to do. I just hope I get the same bloke for that as I did today.