Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Licensed to drive!!

I started this post the day before but finished writing it only this morning:

What a nerve wracking day it was yesterday......I had my drive test scheduled for 2.20pm and by 12.30 I was a nervous wreck! I don't even know why I was so nervous...I was confident about my ability to drive, but I think it was more of the 'how is the examiner going to be?' sort of thoughts running through my mind.



Not of any help, was hearing many people relate their stories to me about how they failed the test so many number of times and for what reasons. Some of them:



There are people here who have done the entire test perfectly, only to be told at the end that they failed. Why? Because they forgot to put their seatbelt on. Automatic fail!!



Another lady backed up into a concrete post when asked to reverse park and another man (both from India) parallel parked hitting both cars he was trying to park between. These are not novice drivers, but just nervous drivers because you have this examiner watching your every move!



So I sat in the car for half an hour and waited for the examiner. It turned out to be this really nice Lady, who asked me to show her that the left and right signal lights and brake lights were working on the car that I had brought with me for the test. You have to come in your own car. Since I did go for lessons with a driving insturctor, I took his car for the test. Then after asking routine questions like if I wore glasses, how was my health etc she asked me to start the engine and move out of the parking slot.



Then she asked me to drive onto the main road, with regular traffic and take left or right turns in advance of signals to give me time to change lanes if I had to. Once inside a residential area, she asked me to show her 'down hill parking, a three point turn and a left turn on the four way junction'. By this time, I was not nervous at all and just followed her instructions. She then asked me to drive back to the test drive centre and reverse park into one of the parking slots. Luckily I had practiced and managed to put the car in perfectly! She immediately told me that I passed and after giving a thumbs up to my instructor who was nervously waiting for me, I went inside the Drive Test office to get my new license!!



What a feeling of instant freedom. I drove my kids to the library in the evening and my daughter to school this morning.

So one more thing done in Canada..........next on the list is to go to the police station.........I'll tell you why in my next post.

Bye for now

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