Let's Talk - Driving

About two months ago I passed my driving test and bought my very first car. Just saying (or typing?) that still seems so unreal, like I still can’t believe that I can actually drive and that I’m so lucky to have my very own car. It’s kind of weird because I still don’t feel like I’m old enough to drive and yet here I am with a license and a car. In all honesty, I hadn’t been expecting to pass my test. All my driving lessons and mock tests leading up to the actual test had all been not the best and so I had been mentally preparing myself to fail (which I know isn’t the right attitude to go about things in life, but I had been trying to be realistic). But I somehow managed to pass! 

Since passing my test I’ve actually been a quite nervous about driving and being out on the roads by myself. I’ve felt that my driving confidence has been really low. Most of my friends have passed their driving tests and ever since they passed, they have all been able to drive pretty much anywhere they want and they all seem fairly confident about it. Meanwhile, I get nervous about driving the 5 minutes to work. For some reason I felt that when I passed my test I’d suddenly be confident to drive anywhere and everywhere, however that hasn’t been the case. And in the beginning this really upset me because I felt like I was a bad driver and that I shouldn’t have passed and I kept making lots of little mistakes when I was driving. 

On my very first day driving myself, I crashed one of my wing mirrors into the corner of my house and it smashed and broke off completely. I had just started a new part-time job and the drive there and back had went well and I was feeling proud of myself and then I had to try and park in the driveway... my driveway isn’t the easiest to park on and because it’s on a slight slope you really need to reverse in to make it easier to get out. Unfortunately my car was at the wrong angle and I smashed my wing mirror off the corner of the house. Thankfully it was just the wing mirror and the body of the car was fine (the house was all good too😂) My mirror was able to be replaced and you’d never have known anything had happened. But after that incident, I became even more wary of driving and started to go out driving less and less. 

 I think I had been overly comparing my driving abilities to my friends’ even though they had all passed way before me. Most of my friends had started learning to drive at 17 whereas I didn’t feel ready when I turned 17 so instead I spent a year saving for lessons and putting money away for a car. 

I’ve been trying to drive a lot more and have been getting slightly better each time I go out. Of course I still make mistakes and feel pressure from other drivers because I’m not going fast enough for them (I have a black box, I really need to stick to all of the speed limits 😄). 

Overall I’ve come to realise that the driving lessons pretty much just teach you how to pass the test, the real learning begins once you’re out on the roads yourself, going to different places / driving on different roads. Driving is just like any skill; you need to practice and work on it to get better and everyone learns at different rates and it's important to go at the pace you feel most comfortable. 

Driving is fun though, and it definitely gives you more of a sense of freedom and I’ll be continuing to practice driving in order to get better!

Bye for now, xo