What car did you learn to drive in? Shocked to see what learners are now driving...

[slinxy]

I learnt to drive in a Citroen C3, a so called super mini....
but (and this maybe in the region where I live), I seen loads of driving schools using mini SUVs to teach people in... The other day I saw a Merc A class being used.
Is this now the norm?

 

[slinxy]

All rosy, until I took her out in her own little car.........And to put it bluntly, she had no idea how to drive a car!! No idea on clutch control, biting point, handbrake use, reversing using mirrors etc....Mr Instructors Alfa apparently had all the toys that did everything for you. It was a massive shock to the system and caused a lot of tears.. ( not mine )

Tell me about it lol
My current car has anti stall.. hill assisted starts.. automatic everything.. I would have waited for an automatic gear box too if I wasn’t in such a rush. Amazed how quickly my nieces can park in the smallest spots as they have cameras all around the car now.

Just the small difference of having power steering in the car I learnt to drive in to not having it on the 95 306 that I brought when I passed was a massive difference.

My brother borrowed my old car a few months back, and I was driving around at dusk wondering why it was so dark. Turns out that he turned off the automatic lights and I’ve been driving about in the evenings without lights on.. lol

 

[slinxy]

I left school on Friday and started work on the Monday. My first pay packet as a 16 year old was £36.75 and I bought my mum an electric lawnmower so she wouldn't have to go on her knees and cut it with shears. The next week it was just over £75 because of overtime. Most of my mates were on the slave labour YTS scheme "earning" £25 a week!! By the time I was 18 and bought this car I was earning £120+ most weeks (sometimes £180 but so many hours!!) due to overtime.

What car?! Lol..

 

[slinxy]

it's funny.... given drivers are far more likely to have an accident in their 1st 12 months of passing their test, really they need to be in the safest cars possible.

While I agree safety is the main priority, it really needs to be a good mix of safety for the driver and other road users.

Most older drivers have driven cars that had rattled when above a certain speed.. pop a new driver into a modern suv and the number of safety features may make the driver think that they are invincible. With the torque and pickup speed of some of the higher end ones, specially an automatic, they may be breaking the speed limit before they even know it.

I think this country is slowly getting to the point where it be like the US, where small affordable cars are hardly made available by the manufacturers as they claim that no one buys them.