Driving Up The Wall Part 2

Having failed completely to get anywhere near to taking the South Carolina driving test last week owing to one missing piece of paperwork (see entry for the 13th October), this Thursday saw me venturing out to North Charleston again, with half a tree's worth of paperwork just in case. Thankfully, this satisfied the necessary requirements (maybe it goes on weight of paper bought along?!) and i was actually allowed to go on and take the written test - I say written, its all done on computers, but you know what i mean. This consists of 30 multiple choice questions, similar to the UK one except they have 35 questions there. Another difference is you have a choice of three over here, but four back home. Anyway, i passed this with a minimum of fuss - and only three questions wrong (I believe they allow you to get five wrong but don't hold me to that).

So, on to the practical - and Youssef very kindly (and bravely, or foolishly depending on your point of view!) leant me his car to do this in. This consists of about ten minutes or so of driving about and performing various manouevers - parallel parking, the three point turn (and it has to be three-point here), reversing up the road in a straight line (no reversing round a corner) and parking on a hill (or imagining you're parking on a hill as there aren't too many around North Charleston). There's also no emergency stop. Anyway, after all this, i was told that i'd failed but on very minor things so could come back on Monday to try again. The reasons i'd failed were essentially cause i forgot to give a couple of turn signals when pulling out - which, i suppose, are fair enough but annoying nonetheless. However, when you learn that all international people fail the test the first time (certainly all the ones i've spoken too and that's a lot!), it makes you wonder if there's a bit more to it than that. Anyway, roll on Monday.