Confessions of a driving instructor
'Sometimes, I fall asleep'
Mr Tan (not his real name), in his 50s, has been a private driving instructor for over 10 years. He says women are better drivers than their male counterparts.
"Most men drive like they're in an action movie. Even if they are just learning to drive for the first time, they think they are heroes.
"They speed. They act cool and drive with just one hand on the steering wheel. They argue when you correct them.
"Women are better drivers. Some of them are slower to learn, but they really want to learn all the skills and techniques (of driving)."
Mr Tan recalls how a male student -- 18 years old and fresh out of junior college -- had been at the wheel barely 10 minutes before he mounted the kerb [I think the reporter means the car]...
"He was a show-off. He kept saying, "I'm a man. I was born to drive'," recalls Mr Tan... "I'm an unwilling stuntman. I'm a test dummy," Mr Tan says with a laugh.
...[S]ome of his students, he reveals, have been weaned on one too many Hollywood racing movies. "I think in the past five years especially, I've been getting more kids who think they're in Tokyo Drift. They drive like gangsters, very flashy, very fast," he says.
Once, a 21-year-old student was speeding down the road after the traffic lights turned yellow [he means amber]. Their car went careening into the path of a huge container truck -- until Mr Tan reached over to steer the car out of the way at the last minute, stamping hard on the brake pedal [the specially fitted one on the instructor's side] to swerve them to a stop.
"I was trembling when I got home that day. I told my wife, 'Honey, I almost died today'."...
But once his students get the hang of driving, he eases up on them -- sometimes a little too much.
"Sometimes, I fall asleep," he admits. Mr Tan says he is not the only one who falls asleep during lessons. [He says most] driving instructors are old, and long hours in the car tend to make them drowsy.
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It has been such a long time since I took driving lessons, and sat the Highway Code and driving tests in the 1970s.
Learner drivers, or L-drivers, were called "lembus" -- or cows in Malay. I suppose this was because a newbie L-driver -- in the instructor's distinctive Morris Minor car adorned with the L-plates on the front and rear bumpers -- invariably moved at a cow's pace, unlike Mr Tan's "drive like lightning" student L-learners today.
The Highway Code test, conducted at the then Maxwell Road Traffic Police Station, was fun. Apart from the written test, an "examinee" also had to push little Matchbox toy cars around.
For instance, at an intersection without signal lights, the "examiner" may want to move his little car to turn, say, left or right and you -- coming from the opposite direction -- will have to react accordingly.
On the all-important driving test date, the instructor watches nervously from a little distance away as you greet the unsmiling tester. If you see the instructor grimace, you know you have got a "ngeow" (very strict, sure fail you, one) tester.
After you get into the car with the tester, the first hurdle is the set of four poles. You have to parallel-park the car into the space within (ie the imaginary parking spot) -- without knocking down any of the poles. Those were the days when there was no such thing as power-assisted steering so one can imagine the effort needed while trying to fine-tune the steering wheel turns. But I cleared this first hurdle!
Then it was that make-or-break drive around the infamous Ann Siang Hill test circuit. Think of San Franciso's crooked little alley, Lombard Street, and you have an idea of the hilly slopes and narrow streets screaming out, "Stall the engine, lembu!". But I passed! I was among that rare breed of first-timers too, which allowed me bragging rights among my less fortunate friends. And, um, an incredulous instructor.
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I have this thing about road signs. So, I was delighted to see the New Paper on Sunday's artist come up with a set of cheeky road signs. Here's the one I like best:
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