13/09/2026
š In the Life of a Driving Instructorā¦
Being a driving instructor is a wonderfully peaceful career. You just sit in the passenger seat all day admiring the scenery while somebody with twelve hoursā experience controls a tonne and a half of metal. Basically a spa day, but with dual controls and the occasional possibility of meeting your ancestors.
You start every lesson full of optimism. āAt the end of the road, turn left please.ā Simple enough. Then the right indicator comes on, the windscreen wipers start performing Riverdance and somehow weāre heading straight on.
Iāve given one instruction and received three completely unrelated answers.
Itās like trying to communicate with a self-service checkout.
Then thereās the clutch.
That poor clutch has been lifted, dropped, roasted and interrogated harder than a suspect on Line of Duty.
The biting point apparently lives in Narnia because weāve been looking for it since Tuesday. Eventually they find it, panic, launch the car forward like a SpaceX mission and look at me as though Volkswagen fitted the rocket boosters.
Roundabouts are where I discover whether my life insurance is adequate. We approach in the left lane, drift towards the middle, briefly visit the right lane and then casually wander back again like weāre browsing the middle aisle of Aldi. Meanwhile Iām saying, āWatch your position,ā in the same calm voice a bomb-disposal expert probably uses when somebody asks if they should cut the red wire.
Mirrors are another fascinating concept. Some learners check them so enthusiastically Iām expecting them to spot traffic from last Thursday. Others treat them like framed photographs of relatives theyāve fallen out with. āWhatās behind you?ā I ask. Apparently nobody knows. Could be a Fiesta.
Could be a double-decker bus.
Could be King Charles on a bicycle. Weāll discover together.
Then we arrive at a junction and suddenly the car develops all the urgency of a council planning application.
Thereās a gap you could comfortably sail the Titanic through, but weāre still sitting there studying it.
Eventually a car appears three counties away and THAT is the precise moment they decide, āYep, I can go now.ā
Parking deserves its own counselling service.
We start beautifully, turn the wheel, straighten up and somehow finish diagonally across the bay like the car has been dropped there by a helicopter. āDo you think weāre straight?ā I ask.
They look around confidently and say yes. Of course we are. If you tilt your head 47 degrees and completely disregard geometry.
Emergency stops are especially exciting when I havenāt actually asked for one. A leaf moves, somebody opens a front door in Swansea and suddenly Iām being introduced to the dashboard.
Yet put an actual hazard ahead and sometimes we approach it with the confidence of somebody who has absolutely no plans beyond the next six seconds.
Of course, none of this shows on my face. Driving instructors develop a special expression somewhere between āeverything is absolutely fineā and āIāve just seen the gates of heaven and theyāre surprisingly close.ā
My voice stays calm, my hands stay relaxed and my right foot is hovering over that dual brake like a meerkat thatās heard a crisp packet open.
Then something happens that makes all the madness worthwhile.
The learner who once changed lanes like a supermarket trolley with a wonky wheel suddenly holds beautiful position. The one who treated every roundabout like the final level of The Crystal Maze starts reading them properly. The learner who used to ask me what to do every ten seconds starts making safe decisions without me saying a word.
Then one day they pass.
Theyāre standing there holding that certificate with a grin big enough to be seen from the International Space Station, while Iām looking at them remembering the stalls, the kerbs, the roundabouts, the emergency braking, the grey hairs and the approximately 4,000 times I quietly thought, āWellā¦ thatās another pair of pants for the wash.ā
They leave with a licence and a whole new independence.
I leave needing a cup of tea, a lie down and a nervous system that hasnāt done more mileage than the car.
I wouldnāt change it for the world. ā¤ļø
P.S. Before anyone phones DVSA, this is called humour.
No learners, clutches or driving instructors were harmed in the making of this post. š
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