7 months and 3 grand later

After almost 7 months of waiting, going for lessons in the evenings and reaching home after 11:30hrs; not to mention 3 attempts, I have finally got my driving license. At last, I can breathe a sign of relief from what seem to be an elusive driver’s license.

All had gotten off to a good start. I had passed both my Basic Theory Test and Final Theory Test on my first attempts. It wasn’t until a year later that I decided to make time to attend driving lessons. Given that the FTT is valid for only 2 years, it meant that I needed to complete the programme and attain my license in 12 months. It didn’t seem too hard at all; or at least I thought it didn’t.

Registering at SSDC was a 90 minutes affair. I was brief shortly by an instructor on procedures of booking for lessons online and attending lessons at the centre. The same instructor mentioned on average, it takes a new learner driver between 25 to 33 lessons before he or she is ready to take the driving test. Before I left the counter on 5th February, I had booked myself for just 20 lessons. At SGD80+ a pop during peak hours, I wasn’t about to sink in another grand unless necessary.

My SSDC booklet after 7 months

It was a month’s wait before I attended my first driving lesson on 2nd March. By the end of the lesson, I was told by the instructor that I should apply for my Provisional Driving License (PDL) the next day. Apparently, from what he observed on my first lesson, I should be practising on the road in no time. As he suggested, I took some time off work the next day to arrived at the centre during office hour to apply for a PDL. I thanked myself for getting that done for just 10 minutes into my 2nd driving lesson, the instructor asked me if I had my PDL and said we will be heading out to the public roads.

For 4 days a week from Monday to Thursday evenings, I breezed through each lesson rather quickly. Clearly, one of the advantages I had was taking 4 sessions per week. In all honesty, The first 5 minutes on Mondays tend to be cranky to say the least. Not driving for just 3 days somehow made me a tad nervous getting into the car again.

Nevertheless, I completed the programme in exactly a month on 2nd April. Except for a couple of sessions where I could have done better, I cleared all 33 subjects including a compulsory session on an Automatic Transmission Vehicle (ATV) in 20 sessions. My first Traffic Police Pratical Test was scheduled for 15th May. It was a month and a half wait till the test date so reckoned I used the same strategy and booked myself 4 revision lessons, 4 days running up to the actual test date. It was high time I clock myself a few hours in daylight since I have always been taking lessons driving after dusk.

With my revisions cleared and the various instructors giving me the vote of confidence, I expected to clear the test on the first attempt with no issues. I couldn’t be more wrong. On test day, the rain came down hard and visibility was cut down to under 20 metres. Driving under such conditions for the first wasn’t much help. I took to the roads with caution, checked the mirrors and blindspots before each turn and changing lanes. Slowed down as I approach pedestrain crossings to be sure no one was going to dash across in the rain.

Still, the tester felt i didn’t make the cut and faulted me for various things like aqua-planing, centrifugal force and other nonsense. There is the saying, if the tester doesn’t intend to let you pass, he jolly well does that. Disgusted and totally pissed, I had only my luck to blame.

My 2nd attempt at the test on 22nd June didn’t turn out any better. With no available revision slots before my test date. It was as good as me gambling SGD180 away. I have never known myself to be lucky even in blackjack. Without a doubt, I had expected to fail my 2nd attempt which I eventually did. The irony of all this, I scored 38 demerit points even after the fact that my second tester was a camp-mate from army days.

I went on to book my 3rd attempt at the test. This time round, I made it a point to book for revision lessons at the same time. To my surprised, I managed to land a Saturday test slot for 25th July. Given that it would be on the weekend where folks will usually sleep in, Saturdays are known to be the best test days and much coveted by folks like myself.

I had decided, should I fail on the 3rd attempt, there will not be another attempt for me. It was make or break literally for me. I will not go into details of my 3rd test except for the fact that I was in the last test car to move off. Watching others testees leaving before me just kept building the nervousness in me creating stress that I clearly didn’t need.

Passed after 3rd attempt

There was no instruction for emergency braking. Neither was there any instruction to stop and move off from the slope. All in all, I clear the test in 20 minutes or so with 10 demerit points out of the maximum of 18 I was allowed. It was another 90 minutes at least before I was able to get my new temporary driving license from the counter. The photocard driver’s license with arrive via registered mail in the next 30 days. In that time, I had to watch an educational video on driving safety with some explicit nature.

Temp driving license while i wait for the photocard version to arrive

In summary, my Class 3 license didn’t come cheap nor as easy as I had wanted it to. After spending about SGD2.8k on 28 lessons and 3 tests, there was no need for the video to remind me to drive safely and never to drink and drive. I must be an idiot to do that.

Drive safe, Stay alive.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 20:17 and is filed under ramblings and tagged with basic theory test, driving lessons, driving test, final theory test, ftt, learner driver, peak hours, provisional driving license, public roads, week from monday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.