She’s passed her theory and, after an Olympic-level feat of early-morning reflexes, we’ve secured a practical test.
If you’ve never tried booking one via the DVSA portal, it’s akin to scrambling for tickets to Oasis’s 2025 reunion tour, logging on at 5.45 on a Monday morning, pre-caffeine and while still negotiating your own eyelids. Slots vanish in seconds.
I assume bots are involved. Anyway, it’s an adrenaline surge no sane person needs at that ungodly hour.
Our daughter has chosen to learn the old-fashioned way, on a manual car. No push-button, glide-along convenience here.
Shelley-Anne Salisbury has become a modern anthropologist while watching her daughter learn to drive (Image: 1000words.co.za)
We weighed up the pros and cons – future-proof flexibility versus the looming age of driverless cars – and she went for maximum independence. Admirable.
She’s calm, focused and increasingly confident.
She negotiates the public highways really well. Which is more than I can say for much of the other road-using population – motorists, cyclists and pedestrians alike.
From my vantage point in the passenger seat on these practice runs, I’ve become a reluctant anthropologist of modern transport behaviour.
The findings are not encouraging.
Only this morning a pedestrian emerged from behind a parked car, eyes glued to their phone, AirPods firmly plugged in, totally oblivious to oncoming traffic.
Moments later, a driver impatiently overtook us while we were travelling at the clearly signposted 20mph.
Luckily my daughter reacted quickly to both incidences with a textbook emergency stop while I was stamping so hard on imaginary brakes that my foot cramped.
These practice drives are essential. They give a learner driver road sense, spatial awareness, and a healthy respect for the fact they are operating what is, in essence, a fast-moving lump of metal capable of doing serious harm.
I’ve told my daughter a car is a potential weapon of mass destruction. Treat it accordingly. But responsibility shouldn’t be a one-way street.
Learner drivers seem to trigger a collective loss of empathy.
The moment those L plates appear, patience evaporates. Horns blare. Tailgaters loom. Risky overtakes are attempted.
All because a novice dares to obey the Highway Code. Slowing at pedestrian crossings. Stopping as amber turns to red. Taking a moment to assess the situation before pulling out.
We all need to remember, they’re not dawdling for fun. They’re building skills the rest of us depend on.
A little grace now might just create better, safer drivers later.
So, cyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike, perhaps we could all try looking up, slowing down and sharing the road safely. And please give learners a break.
After all, that annoying clutch-juddering, palms-sweating, engine-stalling learner driver may well have been you once.
- Shelley-Anne Salisbury is a mediator, writer and the editor of Suburb News, themediationpod.net.
