>>4594
You should read and pass the theory test if you can before you have a lesson - it'll help enormously.

I would use a big company like BSM or the AA School of Motoring. You should generally budget one hour of tuition, for every year of your age.

I've always wondered what would happen if you did the pictured act?
I assumed the gearbox would pretty much spit the stick straight back out of the reverse slot into neutral, whilst making noises like a rock tumbler.

>>4596
You'll destroy the transmission and/or the engine.

There was a car in the 90s - the Jaguar XKR I think - where a journalist took it out on a track for a review and "accidentally" did what you describe at speed; complete write off.

>>4594

You'll need to apply for a provisional license before you can start taking lessons. You can do this online and you should get your license within about a week. Passing your theory test ASAP will make things quicker and easier, but you don't need to do this before you start lessons. There are loads of books and apps available to study for the theory test.

Unfortunately there's currently a massive backlog of learner drivers after lockdown, so you might find it difficult to book lessons or a test. Unless you manage to grab a cancellation, you're likely to be offered a test date in 2022.

If you need your own transport now, you can ride a scooter or small motorcycle on a provisional license. You need to take a Compulsory Basic Training course first, but this only takes a day and you don't need to pass a test.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-first-provisional-driving-licence

https://www.gov.uk/motorcycle-cbt

>>4598

>If you need your own transport now, you can ride a scooter or small motorcycle on a provisional license.

I just noticed that you said that you never learned to ride a bicycle, so scratch that off the list. If you'd like to learn to ride a bicycle, there are plenty of instructors who offer cycling lessons for adults - many local authorities even offer free training.

>>4596

Any car from the last 40 years or so, you simply couldn't do it, it's mechanically locked out, at least to the point where you'd have to apply a LOT of force to do it. Assuming you've defeated that mechanism, a violent gearbox disassembly will occur.

>>4600

>Any car from the last 40 years or so

I already realise this is wildly inaccurate, please don't come at me.

Read the highway code and digest it. Get one of those practice theory test things and swot up on it for a bit, then book your theory as soon as you can, it's useful to have all that knowledge under your belt before you start lessons. If not, your instructor will have to waste time teaching you the concepts involved and then you're only wasting your own time and money.

After that yeah just start lessons. There's no rush, it's mainly about getting hours in behind the wheel. Some people take to it pretty naturally, some people really struggle, but the thing to remember is it's less about actually knowing how to operate a vehicle than it is about knowing how to use the road safely. That's the number one objective. Situational awareness, observance, all that- You have to judt spend enough time actually driving that you can work the pedals and change gear etc as second nature, and then your brain is free to concentrate on safety.

Best of luck m8. We'll go on a cruise in our Corsas when you pass if you want.

>>4596
This bloke manages it.

>>4603
Holy shit I didn't expect that to go quite so well.

>>4604
I would suggest that truck has a very strong transmission - I don't think many cars would behave quite that well.

>>4604

I think he got away with it because it's a pickup truck - the transmission is overbuilt and there's very little weight over the rear wheels. I doubt you'd be so lucky in a car, particularly FWD.

>>4606

Also the drive shaft acts like a torsion bar to limit the peak torque.

>>4605
What happened is that the wheels lost traction instantly so it's not putting as much torque onto the engine as you'd think. Most of the brunt is taken up by the clutch which would be burning up very quickly while you do this.
If you tried this in a FWD a side effect would be that you would completely lose steering and go into a spin.

To cross this over with homeownership:

Should I learn to drive before I even think about buying a home? At the moment I invest all my savings in funds, I've tried different categories to keep the money split up but in my mind it's all for property and I'm therefore reluctant to take anything out once it goes in. In fact I can't, because I look at the total on my screen and feel proud of myself - I get invested in that number.

I already have about 23k together but probably want to get that to 27k by around January/February to buy a 10% on a 200k home with all the additional bullshit. I mean, it's not that much to learn but it does add up and there's the temptation I'd need to avoid to then buy a car. Perhaps I should instead buy the home so I have more flexibility with savings and live somewhere more car friendly - even if it means a nuisance in moving costs and getting somewhere more central (thereby smaller).

>>4609
I'm aiming for the house first, but that's because I work somewhere where houses are cheap, so I can buy a house right by work and just never see my friends again for several months. Cars have all manner of running costs too, so if you like watching your bank balance go up, it will go up much more slowly once you have to pay for insurance, and petrol, and parking, and an MOT, and so on and so forth.

And if you're looking at buying a house, please remember that banks will only lend you a certain multiple of your annual income. The deposit is pointless if it doesn't make up the rest of the house price. My own numbers are around £28,000pa with about £30,000 in the bank, so I can't buy a £600,000 house with a 5% deposit because banks will only lend me £28,000 x 4.5, or perhaps x 5.5 now. Assuming I can get the x5.5, that's £28,000x5.5 = £154,000, plus the £30,000 I have, so the most expensive house I can buy would cost £184,000. I'm sorry if you know all this already.

I've been practicing for my theory test using one app but I've gotten bored of the hazard perception videos and feel like it's become ineffective as I now click the hazard before it happens just because I know what is going to happen. To deal with this I moved to the James' May one and it's exactly the same hazard perception videos.

The same questions makes sense as they're all going off the same handbook. But I reckon all theory test apps are using the same provider for the CGI videos.

>>4872

That's probably your sign that you're ready for the test. A reasonably bright person can easily score 30/50 just from common sense and educated guesswork, so getting a passing grade really isn't hard if you've done any reasonable amount of study.

The hazard perception is piss easy as long as you've properly understood the DVSA's definition of a "developing hazard" - something that would cause you to take action, like changing speed or direction. If you look at the comments on this YouTube video, you'll see a lot of people complaining that they were "penalised for seeing the hazard too early", but that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the video is trying to explain - they clicked on something that was a potential hazard, but not yet a developing hazard. Some people suggest clicking twice about two seconds apart to avoid that risk, but I'm not sure that it's necessary if you actually understand what the test is asking you to do.

>>4873
I'm booked for the 18th, there must be a bit of a backlog but I'm reasonably confident I'll ace it so long as I don't get bored in the meantime.

>Should I learn how a car works

That's never a bad idea, but the amount of knowledge you'll need to pass your test will be very rudimentary.

I got my licence many years ago, I'm sure nowadays they'll do a good bit on EVs, but if anything, you'll kind of need to know even less about them because most of them are really smartphones on wheels.

Which is why there will probably be far fewer petrolheads like me in the future. Not just because petrol cars will gradually disappear, but because there isn't much you can tinker with on EVs the way you can on petrol cars. Bit of a shame. Because it's one of my biggest hobbies.

>>4876
>I'm sure nowadays they'll do a good bit on EVs

I don't recall seeing anything on EVs so far - they're still talking about how to refill your battery and what with, which while it could happen is surely less important than things like roadside charging and not putting petrol into an EV these days.

My best guess is that as EVs are all classed as automatic for the purposes of your test they still expect everyone to drive an ICE for the practical to avoid getting stuck with an automatic licence. And obviously the main hazard with EVs on the road is that they're silent and quick to accelerate which doesn't lend itself to a hazard perception test where they don't have sound and want a wide margin for people to peck at the screen like a Turkey.

>>4876
>Bit of a shame. Because it's one of my biggest hobbies.

You can always get into classic cars or motorcycles. My bike is from 2009 but I can still basically take the entire thing apart and put it back together. Modern bikes aren't too much more complicated.

>>4878

I think as the EV market looms, I will try to daily drive a classic car for as long as they let me - MOT, tax and clean air zone exempt is all very appealing to me, though I reckon sooner or later they will stop all that fun.

>>4879
>classic car - MOT, tax and clean air zone exempt
Why is that even the case? MOT makes some sense in that a classic car might not have the capacity to meet modern requirements, but tax and emissions?

>>4880

It only applies to cars that are more than 40 years old. Cars of that age are generally used infrequently and driven carefully. The government has decided that the historical and cultural benefits of keeping those cars on the road outweighs any potential harms. It's not really a loophole that any sane person would seek to exploit, because keeping a car of that age running is an expensive pain in the arse. It also has the benefit of avoiding a lot of unnecessary complexity.

The MOT exemption is mainly for the benefit of MOT testers - cars are tested according to the standards when they were built, not the current standards, so there just aren't many test stations that are still capable of doing an MOT on a classic car.

Pre-1973 cars have white-on-black number plates and often have registration numbers that don't conform to the modern schemes. Either the ANPR cameras for a scheme like ULEZ would need to be programmed especially to recognise them, or those cars would need to be fitted with modern number plates. Given how few classic cars are actually being driven in London at any given time, it's pretty sensible to just say "fuck it" and exempt them.

>>4881

I'm well aware of the rules and the reasoning behind it, that doesn't mean I believe it will always be allowed.

There's plenty of 40 year old cars that are more reliable than modern cars, and certainly easier to maintain than a very modern car that is out of warranty and needs a £200 computer diagnostic before any work even begins.

And we're only a few years away from some very dependable 90s cars being in that bracket, lots of jap stuff and the lovely diesel pugs.

I've got the money and I've got the holiday time to burn. Do you reckon it's better to do an intensive course in London or to shell out to get some cheap B&B somewhere near a driving academy for a couple of weeks?

I don't plan on driving in London and I don't like the idea of paying for driving lessons where I spend half the time stuck in traffic so I'm leaning towards the academy route. I'm purely getting my licence to get it out of the way so it's done if I ever want to move out of the city or go driving on holiday so I don't really need the experiance of learning to drive in London.

>>4882

>There's plenty of 40 year old cars that are more reliable than modern cars, and certainly easier to maintain than a very modern car that is out of warranty and needs a £200 computer diagnostic before any work even begins.

It's a bit more like, if it doesn't have it, it can't break.

But it is true that cars were more reliable back then. Because car ownership was different. Especially with moderately higher priced vehicles, you had many buyers who were financially successful and at some point felt like treating themselves to a nice car that they bought outright with cash. And which they then kept for ten years.

Nowadays, most new cars in the UK are financed. Google say that this is true for 90 percent of all new cars on UK roads, which is a 100% increase over the roughly 45 percent in 2009. Also, the average leasing term durartion is three years, with 48 and 60 months or beyond becoming increasingly less common.

In essence, a car only needs to last three years. After that, nobody cares what happens.

I guess you also need to consider that new cars are more expensive nowadays compared to average incomes. As little as twenty years ago, a mid-range family estate cost about half the average UK household income to buy new. I just looked at the price for a new Ford Focus estate, and it looks like it's somewhere around £30K for the base model. Whereas the average household income is now £36K. So naturally, that limits the number of people who can still afford to buy even a modest family car with their own money.

>>4884

The whole economics of it has changed. Back in the day you only had to be earning modestly above average and you might be able to splash out with spare earnings for a car that cost maybe a few month's salary, nowadays even a pretty average family hatchback will be a year's salary for most people brand new.

Leases are just one of many similar market shifts that allow for the middle class to keep up and pretend they haven't become dramatically poorer in real terms, while manufacturers realised they can double dip if they both charge the initial customer a constant rolling monthly subscription for a car as well as putting it on the second hand market for nearly new prices when they trade it in at 25k miles.

Then you have shite like the Mercs and BMWs with a mirotransaction model taken wholesale from the gaming industry, so you have to pay for the heated seat DLC even after you're already the owner. "Late stage capitalism" they call it, as though this is capitalists getting desperate to squeeze the last drops of blood out of the stone- It's not that. It's just that they are emboldened because by now enough people have grown up no knowing any better.

>>4885
Heated seat subscriptions came and went years ago. It a meme that doesn't exist in reality.

>>4885

It's illegal to sell a cheap car. The cheapest cars on the Indian and Chinese market are about £6000 new. They're perfectly functional and reliable cars, certainly much better than the kind of cars we were buying thirty years ago, but they don't meet British (i.e. European) safety and emissions standards. The cheapest car you can buy over here is about £14,000, not because car manufacturers are cunts, but because that's just what it costs to comply with the mountain of regulations that apply to modern cars. A lot of manufacturers have given up on the cheaper end of the market, because they can't figure out how to turn a profit on a sub-£20k car.

If you buy a new car today, then by law it must be equipped with Autonomous Emergency Braking. That's a useful technology that really does reduce accidents, but it requires two expensive sensors - a radar module built in to the front bumper and a depth-sensing camera tucked behind the rear-view mirror.

Those sensors add several hundred pounds to the cost of the car, but they also significantly increase the cost of repairs. If you replace your windscreen due to a crack, the pedestrian detection camera needs to be recalibrated. It takes about an hour of workshop time and the equipment needed to do the recalibration costs about £20,000. Same if you have a minor shunt and need a new front bumper - even if the radar module survives the crash, it needs to be recalibrated whenever the bumper is removed.

The list of this mandatory tech is absolutely vast. Meeting crash safety requirements necessitates multiple airbags and the use of ultra-high-strength steels in the bodyshell. ABS has been mandatory for ages, but now ESC is and soon lane-keeping systems will be. The complexity of modern engines is driven almost entirely by emissions regs - VVT, EGR, DPF, PCV, direct injection and a raft of sensors to make it all work. Some of that stuff is just failure-prone because of added complexity, but some of it inherently reduces the reliability and durability of an engine, as anyone who has ever cleaned an EGR valve or a diesel intake manifold will tell you.

I honestly don't know what to think. Making cars safer and cleaner seems like it's obviously a good idea, but the increasing cost of new cars is probably a key factor in the increasing age of the average car on the road.

>>4883

Tuition can be significantly cheaper up north, so it might be no more expensive to do it outside of London if you can find cheap accommodation.

Doing your test in London is a bit of a double-edged sword. You're in dense traffic with a lot going on, but you might do the entire test route without going above third gear. I think it's probably just a question of personal preference - whether you're more comfortable dealing with mental Deliveroo riders or dual carriageways.

>>4887

Even with all those added modern systems, you should be able to argue that economies of scale would drive down the cost per unit, as they aren't extras for higher trim levels, but mandatory even on the cheapest VW Polo. You've probably still got enormous costs for R&D either in-house or from suppliers, but the actual electronics these days cost pennies.

>but the increasing cost of new cars is probably a key factor in the increasing age of the average car on the road.

That's probably true. In my example above, just over half a year's median household income for a brand new Ford Focus estate 20 years ago was attainable for many people, when that kind of car cost about £16K, especially considering that a good number of families were making more than the median household income of £29K. Since then, the price for a Focus estate has doubled, while median household income has only increased some 25 percent.

To many people, and not just those who very simply can't afford it nowadays, fitness for use has stayed roughly the same. It's still a car that gets you and your sprogs from point A to point B. And a ten year old Focus estate in good nick can now be had for £7,500. So there's very little upside to getting a brand new car for families on a budget, especially now with the cost of living crisis the past few years. And leasing a more expensive newer car instead of buying it also isn't the answer for a lot of families, because it will only add to their monthly expenses that are already overwhelming.

>>4891
>especially considering that a good number of families were making more than the median household income of £29K.
Almost half of them, in fact. Shocking, but true. #thewesthasfallen

Facetious banter aside, I wondered if car companies were making more profits than they used to, since that would surely be the best way to determine if they are robbing us more, or if they're just being forced to charge more. Obviously you'd need a huge number of graphs to make a truly informed decision, but I just looked at the profits of Volkswagen in 2024, and their profits in 2004.

>Volkswagen’s operating profit in the 2024 fiscal year decreased by some 15.4 percent from the previous year and stood at roughly 19.1 billion euros. Volkswagen's net losses exceeded four billion euros in 2015.
>Since the costly diesel scandal, Volkswagen’s reputation seems to have recovered and many performance indicators are now above pre-scandal figures. This is impressive considering that in both 2017 and 2018, the company had significant one-off costs related to the diesel scandal.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272053/operating-profit-of-volkswagen-since-2006/

In 2004, their profits were just 690 million euros, although this chart on Wikipedia suggests I might be approaching things from the wrong angle and this post might be worthless. Nevertheless, profits have shot up in the past decade; the numbers that are cut off in my screenshot are all similar to the last two numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group#Business_trends

>>4892

I think part of the reason why price per unit for a car has shot up is that carmakers have pretty much abandoned the customer demographic of people who buy cars outright. If 90 percent of your buyers get their car on lease, then it almost doesn't matter how much the total sticker price is to buy it proper. Again, looking up the average monthly rates for a lease on a new Ford Focus estate, it's somewhere around £350, give or take. The key metric for car companies is no longer how to price a car so people will buy it outright, because few of then do anymore, but how much per month they're able to spend on a lease. £4,200 a year for a car that isn't yours may not be good economics, but is manageable for most full-time earners that make near or above the national average.

In the end, a car in itself is a bad investment any way you look at it. If you buy it outright, depreciation eats away at your own money, and if you lease it, you've got running costs that also see no investment return.

Personally, I've always driven older cars. For many reasons. One being that I was able to buy them outright, but also that I had less capital in depreciating assets. Well and of course, being the car tinkerer I've been most of my adult life, I can do all my own repairs. And by now to a standard that's no less than what you get in a garage.

I want to make my current car last as long as possible. 16 plate with about 65k on the clock by now, and considering I don't even use it to commute any more I don't think it'd be unreasonable to drag another 10 or 15 years out of it before I even hit the 100k mark.

I've always thought it's wasteful the way we just throw cars away as soon as a few parts start going dodgy. Obviously our economy is built on replacing shit far sooner than we need to, same with phones and tellies and computers and everything, but for how much resources go into a car it's always seemed to me that we should be treating them more like we do houses. Something you only need to buy two or three of over the course of your life, and you should be driving them until the wheels fall off.

>>4894

>I've always thought it's wasteful the way we just throw cars away as soon as a few parts start going dodgy. Obviously our economy is built on replacing shit far sooner than we need to, same with phones and tellies and computers and everything, but for how much resources go into a car it's always seemed to me that we should be treating them more like we do houses.

You're exactly right. With all the environmental consciousness and reduce, reuse, recycle that has been drummed into us for 40 years, it's almost absurd that we're many times more wasteful with things like cars and indeed electronic gadgets than we were back then.

Our grandparents knew the value of making stuff last. And part of it was because new stuff was expensive. From your car to your TV or even your best suit. Both cars and gadgets have never been as expensive as today, where a bog standard iPhone pushes 1000 quid and a Ford Focus is £30K. The difference of course being that you can't take a screwdriver and a pair of pliers to your iPhone like you could with your grandad's 1960s livingroom radio.

But still, initiatives like the EU's right to repair directive are a step in the right direction, because they will reduce the number of devices, gadgets and appliances that need to be binned because they have one faulty capacitor. And I think there are also things in it that will improve the repairability of cars.

My daily driver is a 1999 Audi A4 that I keep in very good nick and which I've had for going on 15 years. It's the kind of car where you can still do many things, if not all of them yourself. It's lasted through the ages, and I'm just going to keep on replacing things when they break. I can't think of any reason to get a newer car.

I passed my theory test first time which isn't bad given I had to stay up late last night so I was only operating on 4 hours of sleep.

If you want my observations:

1. It gets hot in that testing centre with all the computers and it's made worse as the test room itself is entirely sealed off. I feel for the agency workers on a day like this, one poor woman had to explain everything and I didn't get a word of it as she was about to drop.
2. There's a video where they try to catch you out by making it on the same stretch of road as what you see in the learning apps but the van never shows and instead the video continues to another hazard which is unusual - maybe they're trying to wake people up as I reckon the biggest danger on the hazards might just be boredom.
3. Every hazards practice app I did had me click with the mouse or my finger on the screen at the hazard. This doesn't happen in the test, you just click the mouse when it's on screen. That threw me at the start and I was trying to remember where my cursor was.

Anyway 45/50 on multiple choice, 58/75 on the hazards. Even results with 1 wrong on every subject area. I also noticed that it's taken me 2 years from renewing my provisional to be arsed or technically 16 years. Yes I'm well aware of the superstition that you want to fail your theory the first time

>>4898

Congratulations lad. Everyone does better on the actual questions than the hazard perception, it's one of those where it's hard to explain clearly and concisely exactly what the criteria are, and what they are being marked on, which to me makes it a fundamentally flawed test.

But other than that the theory test is such an absolute piece of piss that I reckon you should get one shot at it, and if you fail that, you're just never allowed to drive.

>>4899
Not a bad idea, but the minimum pass mark should also be increased to 49 as an additional retard filter/traffic reduction measure. You want the nervous Normans and Nancies to be barred because they're probably also gonna drive nervously for far too long otherwise.

>>4898
As an update, I looked into intensive driving courses at my parents which is a lot cheaper than I was expecting - 40hrs for £1600. But the test dates at the minute are backlogged to December unless I can get very lucky with spotting a test opening up on DVSA. Do you reckon my best bet is to delay an intensive course to around a test date in December or to get the basics down now while the weather is good and just do a refresher nearer to the test date once I find one?

>>4901
Can you do any casual time with friends or family members while waiting for the intensive course?

Also, have you looked at getting provisional insurance on a car you have access to? Even if you don't utilise it, You might be able to get a year of insurance for a fraction of the cost it will be when you pass and can contribute to your NCB.

>>4901

If you haven't already, I would suggest talking to the school(s) offering courses in that area about test availability. Instructors can book tests on behalf of students, they have become very savvy at navigating the system and usually have access to test dates that aren't on the DVSA system. I can't make any promises, but I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

>>4902
Eh, I'm an internet person living in Central London.

>Also, have you looked at getting provisional insurance on a car you have access to? Even if you don't utilise it, You might be able to get a year of insurance for a fraction of the cost it will be when you pass and can contribute to your NCB.

I've looked into it but the problem is that it adds a hefty whack to the insurance premium that negate the benefit. If I was 17 and planning to drive my parents car off the bat then it seems like it would make more sense.

>>4903
Yeah I'm sorting with an instructor now - either way it seems like one of those pisstakes where I'll have to travel at short notice if I do find a sudden spot open up. Apparently there's quite an industry now with people selling test dates. Broken Britain.

Just move to Bradford. No need to take a test, or tax or insure your vehicle for that matter.

>>4902
The cost of your car insurance rockets up at the moment you pass your test. If you don't declare that you now have a full license then your insurance will be void.

>>4906

Agreed, however, if due to one of many issues you don't pass the test within a year then you would be getting a year of cheap learners insurance counting towards NCB.

You would need to do a bit of research on the numbers beforehand, but it could be that if you took out a learners policy for ~£600 on a car you might only drive a handful of times in a year it could end up saving you ~£1000 or more over your first few years of proper insurance.

>>4904
I have since learnt that the DVSA has made my plan impossible as they now move test dates around at less than a week's notice to different dates and times on top of a backlog where there's now not a test spot in the whole region until next year. This in turn makes it a nightmare for instructors as there's a shortage of them with fully booked schedules - just flat out nobody is doing two week intensive courses anymore.

My options are to either do 20 hours now and then another 20 closer to the test or I book a test and just work backwards from there and eat shit on the winter conditions.

>>4908
Winter conditions? You want to drive a car, not invade Russia. We don't have winter conditions in this country.

>>4909

And that's exactly why so many people don't know how the fuck to drive on ice or snow in this country, we assume it's never going to be a problem. Then when there's invariably a week of snow every year everyone loses their shit like it never happens.

You really can't get a test at all now even using those shady cancellation websites. I'm not kidding, it's impossible.

>>4915

Very much depends on where you are in the country. My friend's son recently booked a test on the official website for early November, with a choice of appointment times (North West England). I don't want to downplay the situation because it's absolutely disgraceful, but it is still possible to get a test if you're persistent and you're willing to travel.

>>4916
>you're willing to travel

I suspect this is what I'll have to do even if it creates it's own problem of either doing the learning bit on the other end of the country or spending hundreds of pounds getting a hotel while I learn. I'm running one of those auto-search extensions at the moment waiting for something to pop up before the bots snag it on the unstable DVLA website that manages fail at stopping scalpers and at the same time is annoying to log-into for humans and blocks my main browser.

Meanwhile look at how easy it is to give the government money: https://www.dmo.gov.uk/media/cd0eq1sd/donations-and-bequests-donation-form-040221.pdf

>>4917
Don't be soft. You're learning to drive a car, not a local road layout. Learn locally and test wherever you can without ever having driven there.

I can no longer check test availability by virtue of having passed but I did take my test less than three years ago when people were bleating about how impossible it was to get a test. Absolute nonsense it was, provided you're willing to travel and comb through multiple pages of test cente results. I did initially use a scalper site but later found better resuls manually.

Waiting months and months is the most bizarre self-imposed impotence.

>>4915
Just checking to make sure everyone knows the "cancellation" thing is a scam, right? It's just a variation on the classic Ponzi scheme.

>>4918

>Learn locally and test wherever you can without ever having driven there.

I wouldn't recommend it. You'll need to arrange with a local instructor to use their car for the test, so you might as well also book in for a couple of hours so they can show you around the local test routes. Probably a good idea to get there a day early and spend the night in a hotel if you're travelling far, just so you're a bit fresher and more relaxed.

I do agree that often people fall into the trap of thinking "this is harder than it should be, so I might as well just give up".

>>4920
>You'll need to arrange with a local instructor to use their car
I did no such thing, by virtue of owning my own car already. Ladmate presumably isn't 17, so I can't see why he'd postpone ownership until passing. You do have the qualified passenger requirement to contend with but that's outweighed by dirt cheap learner insurance and not paying some wally £30 quid or more per hour to mill about aimlessly in his econobox.