Memoirs of a Driving Instructor

by Clive Fattorini

Reversing Round A Corner

Prior to doing the reverse round a corner certain points of turn are explained to the pupil. These can initially assist the pupil in knowing when to turn the steering wheel during this particular manoeuvre.

The particular point in question was when to straighten the steering wheel after completing the turn. To help two white sticky labels were placed on the bottom of the rear window. These were about 6 inches apart and the instruction was to straighten the wheel when the 2nd marker touched the kerb. On completing the turn the pupil proceeded to straighten the wheel when she thought the correct marker had touched the kerb. I could see that she was doing this far too early so I stopped the vehicle and pointed this out to the pupil.

The pupil remarked "Is it the middle marker?". I could not for the life of me see how two markers could have a middle one, but she insisted that there were three on the back window. As I had only stuck two on I wondered where the other one had come from.

On examining the marks closely it became obvious to me as to what had happened. It seemed hard to believe at the time but a seagull had obligingly dropped, whatever they drop, and it had landed directly in between the original 2 marks to make 3.

Thank goodness it wasn't a driving test!

Flat Out...

On another occasion a pupil was just about to set off when she decided that her seat was not positioned correctly so she turned to the examiner and said "Will it be alright if I adjust my seat?". He replied "By all means just do as you would normally do."

At which she pulled the handle up to adjust her back position and the seat fell suddenly backwards into a horizontal position complete with pupil.
The examiner gave a long admiring look and retorted. "Oh dear! Just carry on when you are ready."

Glad To Be of Help ?

One of my pupils informed me that his wife was getting annoyed with his driving. Apparently she was accompanying him when he drove the family car. At the end of his road he had to reverse into the driveway at home. Unfortunately on several occasions he had hit the gateposts. By this time the car had lost some paint and did not seem to be the shape that it was meant to be.

To help him out of this dilemma he asked me to afford him more time reversing on his lessons so that he could improve more quickly. (What he meant really was that he wanted to keep his wife quiet). This of course is what I did and he seemed to improve quite a lot over a period of several weeks.

As he did not make any further comment about his reversing I imagined that his problem had been resolved. I left it for another couple of weeks and then more out of curiosity than anything I asked him about his reversing at home.

"How is the reversing going now Bob, are you managing to get into the driveway OK?", I enquired.
"Fine, no problem at all", he replied.
I felt an admiration and was very pleased that I had helped solve the serious situation that he had being getting himself into.
"So all the extra reversing and tuition has finally paid off then?", I asked.
"Well no, not really", he said, "I’ve taken the bloody gateposts out haven’t I?"

Rocket Powered...

One of my very attractive young lady pupils was called Jane, in fact she had a very short name it was JANE ILES.

Being a very polite person whenever any of her friends were near she would say hullo followed by their name and wave to them. The reply was always the same "Hullo, rocket!"

This of course had me very confused but I put up with it for quite some time. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to ask her. "Jane", I said, "why is it that your friends always call you 'rocket'?"

"They always have done", came the reply. "But surely there must be a reason as to why you are given a particular nickname?", I remarked.

"Well it’s a bit embarrassing to me, but if you promise not to laugh or tell anyone else I will tell you", Jane said. I agreed and she continued.

"The story goes like this. Once when I was in class the tutor went out of the room and everyone started talking. After a few minutes the tutor came back in and started calling my name "Jane". Of course no one heard her because of the noise, so she raised her voice and shouted very loudly, "MISS ILES!". Everyone ducked down and then of course the class broke into an uproar of laughter!"

Finally I wiped the tears from my eyes and apologised to Jane for not being able to keep my promise.

When she went to the Test Centre for her Driving Test the examiner asked her what name should he use when addressing her. "Jane", she said with a smile.

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