Congrats! I passed mine in Peterborough first go, four years ago. I got 9 minors. 3 or 4 were for hesitation and I think I know the junction it was on but it was busy and I wanted to make sure I didn't do anything silly. I learnt in a 1.7cdti Vauxhall Astra that apparently had a knackered gearbox - never any bother when I drove it though I remember about a week after passing my test I had to drive to Norwich which is about 2 and a half hours away. I was sweating buckets and was knackered with concentrating so much! Driven a fair few cars now... by far my favourite is a 2005 Audi A4 Avant S-Line that's been remapped. By chuff it goes. I hit a deer earlier this year and the insurance renewal went up to £500-odd for me. Managed to get it elsewhere for £330.
What kind of insurance are you guys talking about? If that's prices for liability only that's bloody expensive! At the moment I pay about 630£ for liability+fire/theft/glass. ('98 BMW 523i) When I was 18 (24now) i paid about the same for liability only (on a '88 Passat), and I thought that was expensive... I passed with no errors. Only comment on the form was "good driving". I was pretty nervous before my test, and got even more nervous when I discovered that the lady who were my examiner (or whatever it's called) were known for failing people for the slightest thing. We got into the car and she started complaining about the horrible weather the night before, and that she hadn't gotten much sleep. I thought I was pretty much f**** at that point. Turns out that she wanted me to drive down some back roads. Luckily for me those roads were pretty damaged from all the rain that night, so I had to drive slowly to not damage the car (well, that's what I said to the examiner anyway). After getting of that road there wasn't much time for any more driving, so we had to drive back. That, combines with the fact that I lived in the county at the time meant that my driving test was a joke, really. Luckily I moved to a city shortly after that so I learned to drive in real traffic.
Apparently I'm more likely to cause an accident, and whilst yes, I am inexperienced, I'm not like every other teen/new driver out there who's going to try and take every corner at 70mph. Guess I'm just going to have to deal with it next year :/ I was close to a flawless victory. One minor was for going from a 40 to a 30 zone, and not losing the speed fast enough (lame). Second was for an observation on my parallel park, I saw there was a car coming up behind me, slowing and pretty much stopped, I knew there was no way they were going to squeeze past me, so I carried on with the maneuver. Did it perfectly. Just I should have let him fully stop :/ Oh well. wish I had your test! I had a Satanic roundabout to do on mine. Real busy, and confusing.. flawless on it though. Anyway, just waiting for license to come through the mail now.
I'm lucky I didn't have parallel parking on my test. I would have failed that for sure. I still can't do it. (Well, I should be able to if I try, but I avoid it.)
Haha, that was my weakest maneuver, was praying I didn't have it. Got my instructor to do a few with me before my test. Real glad I did now! Nailed it!
Generalisation yes, but all you have to do is go and stand in the car park at my old college at lunch time, and what the amount of people that see if they can catch any air off the speed bumps. Okay, using the word 'every' wasn't the best choice, but statistics show that this is exactly what happens.
Statistics say that the average life of man is around 70. You could still die tomorrow. (Pssh, statistics aren't always how life is)
And I agree, but in this case they are much more accurate. Look at the accident figures of the past few years. What was the main age of drivers involved in the RTC's? 17-21. Yes, older more experienced drivers have crashes, but there's more younger drivers involved. And how old are you?! Didn't you do you test same time as me?
Don't you have a bonus system in the UK? The longer you are insured (without a crash) the lower the price.
Yeah, an NCB (No Claims Bonus). Have a crash and claim, then pop. It's gone. Don't have a crash for a year, and you get a years NCB, then 2, 3, 4 etc. I think..