Great thread Mrs Robinson!
I too had to switch instructors because the first one was not satisfactory! I'm taking lessons with "AA" (not that AA, lol), because my first time in a car over here freaked me out and made me see that, oops, I felt like a beginner all over again. It was humiliating because I'd been driving competently for seventeen years in Austin, and it shocked me that just being on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the street, moving the drive stick with the "wrong" hand, was throwing out all the experience and instincts I thought I'd built.
I got over the "wrong side of the street" surprisingly fast. But strangely, the "wrong side of the car" was still throwing me for a long time. I still try to reach for my seat belt with my left hand pawing the air to my left, instead of my right!
The hardest adjustment was dealing with London streets. Narrow, streets made even narrower by back to back parked cars everywhere. No grid pattern of course, instead, crazy shaped junctions where sometimes it's still not clear who is supposed to be turning where and who has priority. The sheer irregularity can be unnerving. And also, pedestrians jumping around unpredictably was not something I ever had to deal with on Austin's highways, as it was a bit like LA for the most part -- not many people actually walked anywhere!
My initial instructor was a grumpy jerk! AA promises patient instructors but this guy didn't have much to go around! I also felt he was not giving me the information I needed about where and how to book the theory test and the practical test -- when you are a Brit living in the UK, almost by osmosis you come to know these things. But when you have been in another country, you don't know where to start finding out "where do I look this up, what do I do, where do I go?" I didn't even know it was called the "DSA" -- the first instructor didn't help.
So I asked for a new one, same company, and this one is much better -- he gave me URLs to go to, I got a book called AA Complete Test, and that has the entire catalogue of questions from which the 50 random test questions are picked. I actually went through those one by one, choicing my answer and seeing if it was right, then memorising the correct answer whenever it wasn't. That was my rough-and-tumble way of learning/revising/ getting the new stuff into my head. It was boring though and I didn't think I was doing enough to pass the theory test.
As per my thread today, I just passed the theory and hazzard perception tests with a huge gulp of relief!
I was almost as worried about the theory test as I still am about the practical test, because the UK theory test seems more challenging to get a pass score at than I recall the US theory segment being, when I took that in 1992. The tests are similar -- all done at a computer screen, multiple choice questions; the UK's seemed stricter somehow. Perhaps just my take on it, or, are there possibly more questions than the US one? I don't know; it just felt scarier until I got in there.
I'm only halfway through of course, but I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that the practical test will be okay --- recently I turned a big corner in my fear level and feel almost as okay now about driving in London as I used to be in my former environment -- I thought that would never happen. Yesterday I even drove, alone, into Camden (traffic and people: crowwwwded!!!!) to do my grocery shopping -- without killing anyone or needing to make an appointment at the auto body shop later, hahahah!
It actually did something else for me too; made me feel more like my life as I knew it in the US was looking more able to be rebuilt again here -- meaning not that I want everything to be exactly the same, of course it's not, it's a different country. But that some of the conveniences and comforts, even a simple thing like being able to drive your groceries home instead of hauling a trolley on the bus like I used to do when I was too scared to drive in London, some of those can be done here too. I felt happier being able to drive again after thinking for while I'd have to give up in fear.
To anyone who is scared to get behind the wheel, I know just how you feel, but you can do it, I promise. I hated it but I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and not just thinking it's a train, hah!
