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On the Discomfort of Learning to Drive — Again
A process filled with humility, annoyance, and roundabouts
Yesterday I passed my driving test. Again. The first time I did it I was 16 years old and lived in California. This time, I am 31 and passed it in England —on the other side of the road, of course.
The fact that I had to do this whole process over agin — learn the highway code, take a theory test, pay for way too many hours of lessons, and pass a physical driving test—was a source of deep frustration for me, especially in a pandemic. But no one ever said being a citizen of two countries would not create a mountain of life admin you’re basically never done dealing with. If I ever wanted to legally drive again in either country, a learner driver is what I had to once again become.
Here’s something I now believe to be true: Learning how to do something from scratch with no prior knowledge may actually be easier than learning how to do something a slightly different way. In the latter case, you’re forced to unlearn your bad habits and dislodge your idiosyncrasies.
As I trained my 31 year old brain to diligently “mirror, signal, maneuver,” to pull the emergency brake on at red lights and stop signs (wtf), and to complete a full six point check every time I pulled away from the curb, I yearned for the neuroplasticity of my 16 year old brain. That brain wouldn’t have questioned any of this. My 31 year old brain had many opinions to the contrary, ones that I had to fight off if I wanted to pass my automatic license test.
Much of driving is muscle memory and confidence, and to a large extent, those two things remained while I learned to drive in another country. But the experience of having a driving instructor critique your every move and decision for two hours at a time is truly bone-shatteringly exhausting—especially if you’re a recovering perfectionist like me. I imagine that you could pick any driver on the road, even ones that have been driving for years, and if you gave them feedback on their every move for two hours, they would turn into something of a nervous wreck. I certainly did.
It’s a humbling experience, re-learning to do something you already know how to do. There were many times I had to begrudgingly concede to my…
