Greg (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ghudson) wrote,@ 2008-10-17 14:09:00 |
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Road test
I took my road test for my driver's license at the Melrose armory.
The guy had me turn on the car and operate my turn signals and brakes while he checked the front and back blinkers and brake light. Didn't have me demonstrate the headlights or hazards or anything else.
The test was mostly conducted on quiet but narrow, unmarked, and poorly maintained roads. He had me do a three-point turn on a narrow road; the Mazda 5 has an excellent turning radius so it was pretty easy, though I hit the curb with my undercarriage. At the intersection after that I asked which way I should turn, and he said "you decide." I arbitrarily chose right; apparently I missed a "do not enter" sign to the left and I would probably have autofailed if I had gone left. Yay winning the coin toss. He had me pull over up to the curb and then back up along the curb for a while. He had me pull over and park on a hill (so, know which way you're supposed to turn the wheels when parking on a hill from the driver's manual; I guessed and I think happened to be correct). He had me parallel park behind a car; I did a somewhat lousy but workable job on the initial approach, and he didn't wait for me to adjust before having me pull out again.
That was about it. He didn't tell me if I lost points for anything, just filled out the "you passed" paperwork. The whole process was pretty fast; I showed up half an hour early and was done before my scheduled time.
Re-learning how to drive was pretty easy. Learning how to parallel park was not. My advice based on my experience:
1. The driver's manual contains a precise, rigid formula for parallel parking which makes it sound easy. Ignore this; it won't work.
2. If you're having any issue clearing the rear left corner of the car you're parking behind, start further back, or don't turn the wheel all the way to the right until after you've started backing up. Your primary concern should be your distance to the curb when you unturn, and you don't want the additional constraint of not hitting the car in front of you. (In real life, if you're parking between two cars with a tight space between them, starting too far back will cause you to fail, but when you're first learning you just want to be parking behind a car with lots of space behind it.)
3. Don't try to get your parking perfect on the initial approach; instead, try to be about 18" away from the curb, and get good at adjusting. If you aim for 6" from the curb and wind up hitting the curb before you're almost done unturning, you've lost; but even if you wind up three feet from the curb you can laboriously adjust your way to parked.
4. A large part of the learning process is getting a good feel for navigating a car backwards. It might be helpful to practice doing that in an empty lot. I didn't wind up doing that personally.
I took my road test for my driver's license at the Melrose armory.
The guy had me turn on the car and operate my turn signals and brakes while he checked the front and back blinkers and brake light. Didn't have me demonstrate the headlights or hazards or anything else.
The test was mostly conducted on quiet but narrow, unmarked, and poorly maintained roads. He had me do a three-point turn on a narrow road; the Mazda 5 has an excellent turning radius so it was pretty easy, though I hit the curb with my undercarriage. At the intersection after that I asked which way I should turn, and he said "you decide." I arbitrarily chose right; apparently I missed a "do not enter" sign to the left and I would probably have autofailed if I had gone left. Yay winning the coin toss. He had me pull over up to the curb and then back up along the curb for a while. He had me pull over and park on a hill (so, know which way you're supposed to turn the wheels when parking on a hill from the driver's manual; I guessed and I think happened to be correct). He had me parallel park behind a car; I did a somewhat lousy but workable job on the initial approach, and he didn't wait for me to adjust before having me pull out again.
That was about it. He didn't tell me if I lost points for anything, just filled out the "you passed" paperwork. The whole process was pretty fast; I showed up half an hour early and was done before my scheduled time.
Re-learning how to drive was pretty easy. Learning how to parallel park was not. My advice based on my experience:
1. The driver's manual contains a precise, rigid formula for parallel parking which makes it sound easy. Ignore this; it won't work.
2. If you're having any issue clearing the rear left corner of the car you're parking behind, start further back, or don't turn the wheel all the way to the right until after you've started backing up. Your primary concern should be your distance to the curb when you unturn, and you don't want the additional constraint of not hitting the car in front of you. (In real life, if you're parking between two cars with a tight space between them, starting too far back will cause you to fail, but when you're first learning you just want to be parking behind a car with lots of space behind it.)
3. Don't try to get your parking perfect on the initial approach; instead, try to be about 18" away from the curb, and get good at adjusting. If you aim for 6" from the curb and wind up hitting the curb before you're almost done unturning, you've lost; but even if you wind up three feet from the curb you can laboriously adjust your way to parked.
4. A large part of the learning process is getting a good feel for navigating a car backwards. It might be helpful to practice doing that in an empty lot. I didn't wind up doing that personally.
