An Unconventional Driving Test - Ye Second

Wednesday was the day of my second driving test and you (like I am) will be glad to hear that this will be the blog about me and my driving lessons/driving tests. Yes, I did pass my driving test. My theory is that only the best drivers pass second time. It is a relief that I have to no longer sit next to either my driving instructor or my dad whenever I want a drive. Now I can either drive by myself or with one of my friends sitting in the passenger seat. It makes a lovely change!
I could write about my driving lessons prior to my test, but I fear it would get very repetitive and boring, not only for me to type but for you to have to sit and read. The general gist of my 6 driving lessons after failing my first one and before passing my second is that I'd drive around the same old roads for an hour. Occasionally I would do a three point turn or reversing around a corner, maybe do a parallel, possibly reverse into a bay, or if my instructor felt like 'throwing caution to the wind' we would do an emergency stop.
I am not going to say that they were a waste of time, because I do believe that I am a better driver than I was 2 months ago thanks to the lessons, but it is a tad bit tedious paying a guy over £20 a week for the pleasure of driving his car for an hour and ending up in the same place he picked you up. It's like an indecisive person hiring a lazy taxi driver.

The Test
Well things started off well with me having the same instructor as last time - the one that failed me. Now, I liked him last time and I liked him this time still. He was quite a chatty guy who made for good banter. I think that suits me; driving while having a joke with the person next to me. I even told him that I loved him when he told me I passed and I hadn't even been drinking. It is not every day I tell older men that I love them.
I did have 5 minors during my test though. One was for not checking my mirrors before changing speed and another for not looking in my mirrors before indicating. The other three I gained while doing my two manoeuvres. One minor I gained while doing a three point turn as I just tapped the curb. The remaining two I gained within seconds of each other while doing a parallel park. I yet again tapped the curb, so to correct my error I moved forward without doing my blind spot check. Really, I wasn’t that bad though. All that means is that if I am about to do a manoeuvre, then don't walk on the pathment.

The overall driving during my test was pretty good I felt. I achieved the roundabouts well, stopped at the appropriate times, drove at the correct speeds and swerved to miss a majority of the potholes. I think I deserved that pass really, but then with the amount of money I've spent on driving lessons alone (I have worked out it comes to nearly £800) I think the system has received enough of my money. Anyone who thinks driving is a cheap hobby was clearly born before 1950 when driving lessons where only 'five shillings'. It will be cheaper now I've passed; unless the cost of petrol goes up, there is no danger of me spending more on petrol than I did on lessons weekly.
My first day of driving solo was quite fun I thought and it was quite adventurous; I done nearly 20 miles of driving and achieved it much quicker than it would have taken if I walked. There was so much traffic on the way to school, that despite my journey taking me down a dual carriageway, I failed to get to 50MPH before joining the back of a miles worth of traffic. Chris Moyles and his team saw me there safely though, and a journey which would take about 15 minutes with no traffic took over half hour. Then after school, I took a few friends home and yet again I was met with traffic and potholes. I am not an angry person, but I do suffer from slight road rage it has to be said. I don't know why, but something about being in a terracotta car makes me feel ''ard'. The way home was met with less traffic, but bigger potholes and also the traffic lights near my house not working. It is quite fun really.

There are many Facebook groups which share a similar opinion to me about potholes. 'I've Paid My Car Tax, Now Go Fix Some F***cking Potholes' and 'I'm Not Drunk, I've Avoiding Potholes' are both correct. The roads around Canterbury seem to have more the holes than there are craters on the moon, and I'm sure there are many places which are similar across the country, if not worse. Even when they do fix these potholes though, they don't do it properly. My car has enough dents in it already (none of which were caused by me, honest. It was the previous owner, I swear) so I don't want them to be added to.

At some point soon, I will need to do a Pass Plus course so that I will hopefully be able to get some money off of my driving insurance when it comes to renewing it in May. If they think I'm paying £1,800 again, then Churchill have another thing coming. Just because I have tesicles, a car and live in an area renowned for attacks on cars doesn't necessarily mean I'm any more of a liability. Then, while I was on the phone to them to change my insurance so I was classed as a guy with a Full License, they tried to con more money out of me. No, I don't want to increase my annual mileage nor upgrade my breakdown cover so you can have more of my money. That is after I was on hold for ten minutes while they played depressing music to me. Call centres must cancel out phone lines like 'The Samaritans'. Do you think you're too happy and in danger of smiling, then just spend 5 minutes waiting to be put through to an advisor, that should do it.

Anyway, thank-you to people who have already congratulated me, and to the people who haven't, I still love you because this means you have read my entire blog without pressing the giant X button on the top right-hand (or if you are a Mac user, the red bubble on the left-hand) corner of your screen. I wish for a long and safe driving career. Hopefully I've not just jinxed myself so I crash my car next week...

And On That Bombshell...

Some say, that Insurance is so expensive that people are starting to park their cars in their front rooms, and saying it's parked in a garage; others say that if you added the Stig to your policy, you'd get free breakdown cover - All I know, is that Insurance is bloody expensive, especially for the first time driver.

As I'm typing this, Churchill are preparing to drain my account of nearly £1,800 for my car insurance, on a 1 litre Nissan Mirca, just because I'm a male teen. If you've ever watched 'Police, Camera, Action' or 'Traffic Cops', the voice over person will always says about reckless male teen drivers, which stereotypes every teenage boy with a car as someone who's going to drive over fields to avoid the police, race around a car park, or go 31 MPH in a 30MPH zone. I'm not one of these kind of teenagers who testosterone is so high I punch my best friend in the face because he touched my hair or want to prove myself as a man so much that I've slept with every girl I've ever looked at (mainly that's more to do with the fact I'm not as 'aesthetically pleasing' as most, but that's not the point I was trying to make). I'm not exactly a stereotypical teenage boy.

I am now 17 in 9 days, which also is the day I have my first driving lesson booked, so as you can tell, I'm quite eager to start driving considering I've got a car and insured it already. But my car only cost me £800, so the insurance is nearly a thousand pound more, which is quite ridiculous. After a year’s driving, assuming you haven't crashed your car or been convicted, the insurance is suppose to drop dramatically, so you're only paying this ridiculous price once. But bloody hell, that's nearly enough to make me catch the bus every day, so I leaved a 'greener' footprint behind me.

There are lots of blogs on the Internet, written by people who are also 17/18 and have brought car insurance, but the one thing I've noticed, is that no two people are the same. Just because Bob in Swansea got cheap car insurance with 'Auto Direct', doesn't mean I will in Canterbury, because your postcode is the most important bit. Me personally, I found both Churchill and Direct Line to be the cheapest, but Churchill was the best value for money. The only way you can find cheap car insurance isn't to ask people who was the cheapest insurer for them, you have to spend hours, maybe even days going through every insurance company and getting quotes on the Internet and on the phone. Also, I've found it's a great way to learn your registration number, as I now know mine off by heart because of the amount of times I've typed it.

I have some pieces of advice to anyone considering buying a car, learning to drive and insuring the car. The first one is to make sure you don't buy your favourite car. Chances are your favourite car is too big. For example, my favourite cars would be the Ford Focus or Fiat Punto, but the engine size on both is too big for someone who is learning to drive/just passed their test, because there is no way (unless you were born of a women who has slept with Richard Branson to Max Mosley) that you would be able to afford the car or the insurance. I own an orange Nissan Micra for God sake - as you can probably guess, it wasn't exactly my first choice. But no-one’s forcing me to keep forever, in fact in two years time it will be 10 years old, so the government will tell me that I could trade it in and get £2,000 off a brand new car. There are lots of problems with that new Government scheme, but that's a blog for another day.

Another piece of advice is to make sure you put someone else on your insurance policy. You Father or Mother favourably, because it will just make learning to drive a lot more simple and give more flexibility to when you can learn to drive. I would strongly advise though that you learn to drive with an instructor and not your Father, because going on how well my friends have done, the ones who have gone with an instructor have passed quicker, and haven't fallen out with their Father.

I suppose you could call this my advice blog to anyone who is about to start driving and in the process of buying a car. My advice would be to make sure you check every insurance company - including Churchill - OO YESH!
Just think that if I can dispense this amount of information before I'm 17, I'm either well informed - or wrong...

So, on that bombshell, it's time to end.Toodles m'dearys
xXXx

And by the way, normal service with cynical blogs will return shortly.

Oh, You Rebels!

You may have noticed those things between programs and during the program, called adverts. They’ve been around for a while, advertising double glazing by shouting at you, spot creams with Vanessa Hudgen’s telling you she’s stressed, Piers Morgan being a twat and saying M&S food is okay, and the latest trend – rock stars and big Hollywood stars advertising insurance.

Namely two insurance companies; Norwich Union (which if you didn’t know is changing its name to Aviva), and Swift Cover. During these times of an economic downturn with banks queuing up to be bailed out by the government, it’s good to know that the insurance companies can still afford big names to advertise them.

Norwich Union have a whole cast of big names, costing them £9 million, with Alice Cooper, Bruce Willis, Dame Edna Everage, Ringo Star and Elle Macpherson. They all asked themselves what would have happened if they hadn’t changed their name. Dame Edna Everage is a bit random though don’t you think? Oh, and just so you know, Norwich Union is not changing their name to get international fame, but purely because they’ve been brought by a company abroad, who have no idea where Norwich is.

Swift Cover responds with a grotesque advert where we join Iggy Pop, with a bear torso, telling me that he is concerned about his insurance, Swift Cover are the best, and therefore we should all run to the phone and change our insurance to Swift Cover. Isn’t is good to know that rock stars have moved on from the times they rebelled, and now make sure they have full comprehensive insurance on their mansions, tour buses and 19 year old girlfriends.

Then Direct Line come along and go, ‘We don’t need a big star to advertise us’, then turned on Dave, and chose two people at random. The lucky fellows chosen were the comic geniuses, Paul Merton and Stephen Fry. I personally prefer this advert, maybe because it’s not so ‘in your face’ and maybe because they’re two of my favorite comedians. You’ll never know.

The point is though, do we really need a host of giant names to get our attention, or will two normal folks have the same effect? Well, we have our own opinions.