How quick do you reckon I could learn to drive?

Soldato
Joined
26 Aug 2003
Posts
24,290
Ok, I'll lay out the facts clear and simple,

I'm 23 at the end of this month.
I have a full unrestricted bike license and have been riding including a short commute daily for about four months. (since mid april)

I've had, a couple of years ago, well over thirty hours of driving lessons, either one hour a week or two hours a week.

I always found driving never 'clicked' with me, it never really came together and I was very inconsistent in how good I was. I also found it really hard to retain what I learned, I think one lesson a week with no practice outside of that was just not enough for me.

I can drive a car, as in make it go along, I just never hit test standard and was never very confident. I just didn't learn very well.

Now, I've completely fallen in love with a car. I'm utterly head over heels for it, and it's fairly likely that another one like it won't really come up again very soon. It's given me the impetus to learn.

Since I've got my bike, I now have pretty decent road sense (it's a bit dangerous out there) and am very comfortable on the road. This only leaves the learning to drive better bit.

Do you think I could learn to drive in say.. six weeks? Eight weeks? Ten weeks?

I'm seriously thinking of getting insured on my mum's car, phoning to book a test, then driving as much as I can and shoehorning in a good amount of lessons, and just trying my hardest to get up to scratch in time for the test.

Think I could do it? If I booked a test and managed to convince father dearest that I stand a decent chance of passing it, he might let me store this car on the street outside the house, but unless I can convince him of that it's a no. (We've had cars of mine stuck in the garage for ages before :D)
 
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Enfield said:
How long is a piece of string?

Well obviously there's a large element of that in it.

Really the question I'm asking is, do you guys reckon that having ridden a bike for a few months on the road will have helped? I'm certain it will have, but I'm dreading getting behind the wheel of a car and finding out, once and for all that I'm just doomed to be a crap driver forever :D

What I hope really is that now I have decent road sense and so on, if I just plow into practicing a lot, I'll find it easier to pick up, and seeing as I've had a lot of tuition in the past, I'm hoping I'll pick it up quick...

I just want to know if that makes any sense or if I'm just full of ****.

[TW]Fox said:
Will you detail the car?

Actually I thought about you in Halfords today.

I found a packet of detailing swabs...

TEN POUNDS FOR A PACKET OF TEN COTTON BUDS

And get this... they were HALF COTTON BUDS! They only had one end!
 
After taking an intensive driving course, I found private practice really helped bring everything together for me before my test. Without an instructor prompting you, without the worry of trying to be perfect/impress your instructor and without the safety net of dual controls you develop a lot more confidence and your own driving style.

Obviously it's more of a problem if you crash as it's your own insurance policy.

Good luck with it :).

Edit: Most new drivers find driving stressful as they feel as though they have too much to think about at once. The more you do it, the more you are able to do without thinking (anticipation + awareness, clutch control, etc) so that you can concentrate on where you're going and dealing with any hazards like oncoming traffic on a narrow lane.
 
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bigchez said:
what is there to stop you storing the car on the street outside anyway? :confused: :confused:

Well... I was given a tatty old Nova for my 17th - my brother in law gave it to me rather than sell it as he'd used it for a bit while his 'proper' car was off the road, and it was worth naff all, so he gave it to me to get me started.. I never learned, and eventually sold it.

Then I bought a 1975 Dolomite Sprint, non-running, with the intention of fixing it, learning to drive, and driving it... We mostly fixed it, but I didn't finish it and jacked in learning to drive, that got sold too...

He just doesn't trust me to pull my finger out and learn to drive :D

Plus, what he says goes, because the car's in Plymouth and I'm in Southend and he'd have to go pick it up for me :D
 
You should do it reasonably quick, you 'Should ( ;) ) know the road so its just getting used to driving a car and spacial awareness :p just for Info i passed my car test in just over 11 hours (although failed first time but did no lessons before second test) and i had been a rider for just under 2 years at the time.
 
Mohinder said:
Well... I was given a tatty old Nova for my 17th - my brother in law gave it to me rather than sell it as he'd used it for a bit while his 'proper' car was off the road, and it was worth naff all, so he gave it to me to get me started.. I never learned, and eventually sold it.

Then I bought a 1975 Dolomite Sprint, non-running, with the intention of fixing it, learning to drive, and driving it... We mostly fixed it, but I didn't finish it and jacked in learning to drive, that got sold too...

He just doesn't trust me to pull my finger out and learn to drive :D

Plus, what he says goes, because the car's in Plymouth and I'm in Southend and he'd have to go pick it up for me :D

All fair points.

Buy it and rent a garage somewhere? can get laid up insurance policies for about £100 a year, and a sorn costs nowt.

Just thinking if this car is the one, and you REALLY want it, then you can work around things until you pass your test.
 
I think you stand a pretty good chance yes. I found that actually learning to work the car was quite easy, although the car i was learning in was really easy to stall. The hardest part was getting used to traffic and roundabouts etc, but you will find this easy as you've been on the roads on your bike. So you should easily be able to learn the maneuvers and clutch control in 6 weeks.

If i was you id have 2 x 1.5h lessons a week so your not forgetting things in between. Or 1 x 1.5 hour lesson and a good bit of practice as well. Then when the test is a couple of weeks away ask for a mock test then work on what you failed on (if you do) in the next lesson that week.
 
bigchez said:
Just thinking if this car is the one, and you REALLY want it

It's the nuts :D

Mark A said:
I think you stand a pretty good chance yes. I found that actually learning to work the car was quite easy, although the car i was learning in was really easy to stall. The hardest part was getting used to traffic and roundabouts etc, but you will find this easy as you've been on the roads on your bike. So you should easily be able to learn the maneuvers and clutch control in 6 weeks.

If i was you id have 2 x 1.5h lessons a week so your not forgetting things in between. Or 1 x 1.5 hour lesson and a good bit of practice as well. Then when the test is a couple of weeks away ask for a mock test then work on what you failed on (if you do) in the next lesson that week.

mmm. I can work a car, I can physically drive one, but that and learning the road side of things was just a little bit much, plus I couldn't practice outside of lessons so it was just a very slow process. Towards the end I lacked confidence and just couldn't be arsed basically, I was a bit meh about the whole thing because I just thought I was crap and there was no point.

Basically I have the choice of either chopping my bike in for a more expensive bike and just having a bike, or chopping my bike in for a more reasonably priced bike, and having a little car to bomb about in and use when it's raining and so on.

I'm not even sure if I could afford to run/insure both, I have to work that out first too.
 
bigchez said:
Or if itss in plymouth, store it @ Fox's. ;)

Or insure me on it, and I'll keep it running ;) ...loads of space here 45miles/mins from Plymouth out in the middle of nowhere.

Out of interest, what is the car?

As for learning, if you've got a keen/decent road sense from the bike then make about all you should need is to learn the basics of car driving, car control and mirrors and you should do it quite quickly.

InvG
 
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InvaderGIR said:
Or insure me on it, and I'll keep it running ;) ...loads of space here 45miles/mins from Plymouth out in the middle of nowhere.

Out of interest, what is the car?

As for learning, if you've got a keen/decent road sense from the bike then make about all you should need is to learn the basics of car driving, car control and mirrors and you should do it quite quickly.

InvG

It's a VW Caddy pickup :cool:

I've just done a quick quote though and it would need to be substantially cheaper to insure than that for me to get off my bum and buy a four wheeled vehicle, it's more than double what it costs to insure my crotch rocket!

That was just from confused.com though, no doubt I can get it cheaper than that, but we shall see.

Bloody ridiculous price to insure a 23 year old on a 1600 diesel pickup though! How much damage do they think I could do with it? :D
 
As you have no road stuff insurance will be silly, and it will seem extra silly compared to a bike.
My brother (couple years older than me, but been riding less than I have driving) and his insurance renewall is for about £300 on a SV650, mine on a Peugeot 205 1.4 is something like £800.

I don't know if your costs would be higher, techincally should be, but then I have an accident on my name :D

InvG
 
£940 TPFT, which is daft considering how slow this little pickup will presumably be. That's before the mods are declared, and they're not particularly subtle so it's not like I could just neglect to mention them.
 
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