For a long time, other people’s stories about driving school and license tests felt irrelevant to me. I had never planned to drive for a living, and I never imagined buying a car in my lifetime. When lessons were cheap and I had holidays, I missed several chances to learn.
Hillway kept stressing the benefits of having a car. There are benefits, of course: at least I would not have to squeeze onto buses to commute while heavily pregnant, as I did last year; on weekends we could occasionally take the family out for a drive; and during the Spring Festival rush we could choose to drive home. But every advantage has its downside, and in my heart I did not support buying a car. First, parking is difficult and there is no space. Second, the costs are high and the car would be used infrequently, so on average it would be more expensive than taking taxis. Third, there is more danger: driving requires concentration and plenty of worry.
Hillway also said that I did not have to drive or buy a car, but as a skill it would always be useful to have, and I would understand when an urgent need came up. From last year into this one, the persuasion continued and the pressure to learn kept coming. It was too much to resist, and I could see the point. Although money was not especially loose, I took advantage of the National Day holiday to find an instructor and sign up.
Another reason I did not want to learn was fear. People say the test is getting harder every year. I had never touched a car and knew very little about them. There are so many traffic accidents, and I had heard that scraping off a patch of paint costs several hundred yuan. Just thinking about it made me nervous.
Fear or no fear, nerves or no nerves, once I had signed up and paid, there was no backing out. Hillway drove me all the way to the driving school gate, and I had to grit my teeth and go in.
The first two days were in the simulation classroom, mainly learning to turn the steering wheel. We first watched an old, blurry video in which Instructor Shi Guanghui explained basic driving knowledge. After about half an hour, the young man in charge of the simulation room called us together at the driving simulators and taught us how to turn the wheel, correcting each person one by one. He was thin and small, but he had a big temper and very little patience. To avoid being scolded, I rehearsed the movements in my head many times before getting on the machine, thinking through each action while slowly turning the wheel.
The video said to hold the wheel at the ten-and-two position, while the young man taught nine and three. One woman insisted on using the ten-and-two grip from the video. She changed hands quickly and made frequent mistakes, so she became his main target and was scolded soundly. There was also a migrant worker whose shirt collar and cuffs were buttoned tightly. He was new to turning the wheel and his hands did not work together well. The young man guided him hand over hand, but without much patience or a kind tone. Under that pressure the man became even more reserved and nervous, and the guidance clearly did not help much. The young man finally said, “I’m about to be so angry I vomit blood—a big pool of it!” and then left him alone.
For those who know how, it is not difficult; for beginners there is always a period of adjustment and practice. Who is fluent from the very beginning? Why not show a little more understanding and patience? People pay thousands in tuition and take time off to learn. Could they not be taught properly?
The next two days were spent learning to drive a real car with an instructor. The waiting was like the wait at registration, only longer: I arrived at the school at nine in the morning and waited until eleven before the instructor called me over. At first I was still nervous. Fortunately, Hillway had taught me at home how to start, stop and shift gears, and although I was not skilled, I could at least drive slowly forward and backward. Following the routine was fine, but sudden instructions still made me flustered.
Those two days of driving dispelled a great deal of my tension and fear. Driving did not feel as difficult or complicated as I had imagined, and I gradually gained confidence. The National Day holiday ended, and the next step was to use spare time at work to study the related material and prepare for the Subject 1 exam.