I was on a lesson tonight, and the pupil had got the mirrors set and we had just driven off from his house. Bearing in mind he has his test in a couple of weeks, after about a hundred metres he said:
Is the mirror set on dim?
I glanced over and could just see the top of his head and most of the ceiling in it. I reached over, twitched the mirror downwards, and replied:
No. Only you.
Earlier in the week, I was driving along with another pupil. We’d just gone past National Speed Limit signs, and he said:
What’s the speed limit here?
I answered (surprised, as I know he knows what these signs mean, and he’d accelerated anyway):
It’s 60 – didn’t you see those NSL signs?
He replied:
Yes, but why does it say 50 on those signs?
I explained:
There is a railway track up on that embankment, and they are there for the trains.
Then again, today, I had one pupil who “lost it” (his own words) at a roundabout and tried to aim straight across it to take the exit we wanted, and then – after I grabbed the wheel – repeatedly tried to drive in any direction except on the road by engaging full lock one side, then the other. When I tried to get to the bottom of it (and I tried very hard), the only thing the pupil could say about why he did it was:
I honestly don’t know.
I hate that outcome.
And also today (the same pupil who hadn’t adjusted his mirror properly), I said:
At the roundabout, turn right, 3rd exit.
It’s a small roundabout, so we approach a little too fast, swing round quickly past exits 1 and 2, then past 3, and finally exit 4, at which point I grabbed the wheel to prevent us going back the way we came (but slicing across two lanes, as it is a dual carriageway).
And this is the bit that always gets me:
Weren’t you counting the exits so you could take the correct one?
Yes!
So why didn’t you take exit 3?
No answer.