I’m doing the driving lessons and I dread them every time. I don’t feel like I’m improving much and it’s just stressful. I feel like giving up. I’m only going because I passed the theory exam with that school, and i would had to spend more money (that I don’t have) if I start again with other school, basically I’m too deep into it to stop.
Btw I now understand the hate towards manual cars. Automatic should be the only option, one less BIG distraction on the road, especially when you’re new on these things, being too soft or too rough on the clutch is a matter of millimeters is ridiculous, watching the road, the signs, the traffic lights, the cars around you, the stupid people with their bikes, while fumbling in the car with the pedals is the worst… (unfortunately you must learn manual where I’m living).
I remember back when I first started learning to drive, dad tried to teach me in his SAAB 95 BioPower estate, it was a manual, it was terrifying.
I only took a few lessons before stopping, almost two daceds later, 2022 I enrolled with a local driving school, learned in a VW Golf Automatic. It was still scary at first, but at 34 was ready in a different way than when I was 18 or so.
Still, it took me almost a year of driving lessons to pass my test, though I did do it while working full time at the same time (I didn’t take a vacation that year, I took sporadic days to attend driving classes).
The first time I took the test I failed as I didn’t keep attention to where the car were in relation to a wall and the examinor had to step on the brake.
The second time went well, and I passed it.
Then for half a year, my dad and me went out on the weekends and I drove his car (a Volvo v90 Automatic), that was absolutely critical, I got the practice I needed and got to spend some quallity time with dad.
Then in the summer of 2023, I bought my first car, a 2021 Seat Leon PHEV hatchback Automatic, and I just went nuts!
In the first year of owning the car I drove 40000km, I drove like absolute mad, every day I got in my car and drove for hours, I explored the local area and the car, not to mention got used to driving.
That was also critical, driving so much has made me a confident driver, though perhaps a bit over confident as I got my first speeding ticket this summer going 10kmh over the limit at a surprise police speed trap.
Then this summer a badger decided to run into my car while I was driving 60, getting that sorted now.
These incidents have made me a calmer driver, especially when it is now getting darker here in Sweden.
I have a few rules of my own that have been very helpful to my being a better driver.
A. If something unexpected happens at an intersection, it might be me getting my priorities mixed up, or someone else behavinf oddly, if that happens, when I get home, I go on Google Streetview and look up the intersection and look at signs, makring and the general look of the place from as many directions as possible, I try to figure out why I drove the way I drove, and why other did it their way. This has helped me hugely.
B. I try turn around (at a suitable place) and drive the road properly after something either happened, or nearly happened. I do this so that the last time I drove a road went well, so an old mistake doesn’t haunt me making me lore worried.