Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Peter_L]

During my "Electrical" Apprenticeship with the NCB, I spent 3 months with the Blacksmiths. It was prior to my driving test. I spent hours sat on a bench, using a big hammer as a make believe gear lever and practicing co-ordination between feet and moving the gear lever. My Dad had a 105E Van, and there was no synchro on 1st. There were a number of road junctions where the uphill approach required 1st gear for the last bit. Clutch control had never been a problem, I had driven trucks, cars and tractors since I was about 8. One favourite was running the tractor with trailer in parallel with the harvester. No H&S Executive back then to stop one learning life's skills.

I taught a few people to drive over the years. First and foremost, on empty car parks, was clutch control. It is the No1 skill that everything else can be built on. If I had my way. I would lift the driving age to 22 and insist that all tests are taken in manual vehicles.

[Ronniej]

Richard speaks of sitting his test at Shawlands.
In the mid-eighties I worked in an office directly above this test centre and I do remember the local urban legends of "no-pass Cass".
We regularly watched the conclusion of a test with either a jubilant or disappointed candidate emerging from the test car.
I did notice that in the case of a driving school car the candidate was ALWAYS driven away by the instructor.
Perhaps it was thought the candidate would be too excited to drive safely immediately after the test.
On one occasion the candidate failed to read the number plate and I was interested to see the formal process taken in the event of this happening.
They brought out a measuring tape and set out the distance inch-perfectly.
The candidate is then asked to read the number.
In this case he could not do so and the test was abandoned. In a sense he had managed to fail without even getting into his car.