George learnt to drive in later life (she's my touchstone for that, too)

Gearorge says, and told me to tell you (let's see if I can remember it all) -

(1) her car (wot she still has) is perfect for learning in and is available to be borrowed for that purpose should you wish - you just have to get insurance for it (which she says as an older driver will be trivial money)

(2) she found that being taught was useful but not as useful as just going out to practice with a friend beside you who would not tell you what to do all the time. She was great with any instructor because she just did what they said, and wasn't learning how to make her own decisions. So, although tuition was useful to tell her how to drive a car, much more time practising without the instructor there was the thing that she should have been spending more time on.

(3) if you can ride a bicycle in traffic, you already know a lot of the road-sense anyway. [this last obvs. isn't relevant to me]

Speaking of life itself, has anyone round here learned how to drive in later life?

Hey, I'm about to start learning - v scared. But inspired by Googe Bird aka Deb Googe from MBV who was approaching 40 when she learnt and then became a cabbie for a bit. Also my great aunty Edna learnt when she was in her 60s!

R's friend Matt is learning now, at the age of 42 or so. Seems to be working.

I learned to drive young, but saw plenty of bods at work taking lessons, everyone gets there at their own pace, whatever the age. I vaguely recall at school the average number of lessons needed to pass was 30.

It's tiresome though, and slow. People seem to drop out from the (perfectly normal) length of time it can take and how boring and expensive it gets.

For the older bod, who (lets face it) has plenty of better things to be doing with their time I'd recommend a crash (!) course if monetarily possible, where instead of doing 1 lesson per week over 30 weeks, book a week or 2 off and do one of those intensive courses. No time to forget between lessons and you get drilled to it quicker.

Maybe.

To be honest, dropping out does seem to boil down to money in the end.
At school, passing the test was something that HAD to be done, socially compulsory, and from my family's point of view - compulsory also, and like most of my peers, it was paid for by our families until we passed. Some passed first time after 30 lessons, others (like me) took 20 lessons, failed, took another 10, passed. (And then saved up to buy a moped not a car!)

"Grown up" students (that I've observed) are stuck from a combo of having to pay out of their own budgets and possibly unrealistic expectations. Thus they set aside a wodge of cash to pay for a set (and insufficient) number of lessons and when they fail after that set number (and failing first time is common and perfectly normal) they give up, or it sort of falls by the wayside (mostly from the unexpected extra expense.)

Expect it to be more expensive than you'd hoped, expect to possibly fail first time, and try to keep regular lessons after the first fail until you pass. People often go very sporadic after the first fail, and if you're not driving regularly, you'll hemmorage confidence.

Finally, when you've lived for so long without a car, it's harder to work up the enthusiasm to pay all that cash, so a fail can make people think - "sod, I've no time or money left - fuck it all!"

When you're a kid, it feels like you can't possibly survive unless you pass.

In truth, I've had jobs that I got precisely because no one else could commute to them, not necessarily far away, but difficult to get to. It did open doors for me. I hate driving, I find it boring and annoying, but damn it comes in very handy, I'd hate to give up my car, even now I'm in London and will be commuting on foot from September.

Edited at 2011-07-07 07:14 (UTC)

I passed my test not so very long ago. You can do it.

All the best with it.

My partnaar barnacle passed his test shortly before his 30th birthday. Is that late enough in life to serve as an example?

Almost everyone who sticks with it passes eventually. There is an intellectual element that you'll have no problem with but basically it is a reflex based skill. As with all such skills practice makes perfect. You do need some lessons to get started and to prepare you for the test but you can save a lot of money by just driving with husband/friends in the passenger seat.

There are pool cars at work (and a couple of pool bikes!) but yes my level of usage is more likely to make me a car clubber -- that or I'll have to schedule in driving practice

Even if I never hit the comfortable phase, it'll still be useful, yes

Chat to you soon.