In all the years I’ve been doing this, I have never had a genuine bust up with a pupil. Until now.
I had a pupil pass his test the other day. He’d previously failed (a couple of months ago) for not responding to a car behind him when reversing round a corner. At the time, he was adamant he wasn’t going to take the test again and that he was going to drive anyway (he’d already been caught and banned for this previously). He admitted that it was his own fault he’d failed – the car had stopped, but he then paid no further heed to it and it had decided not to wait anymore.
I asked him if the examiner was OK about it, and he said “I could have smacked him one “. It was impossible to reason with him – he turned out to be one of those people who is as rough as bricks, can’t handle failure, and blames other people.
Basically, he can drive. He drives typically of someone with loads of confidence but no finesse. He could not do a single manoeuvre, and he only took three 1 hour lessons with me to that point (I hate acting as a hire car service, and refuse to do it if I can see it coming).
Anyway, before this test he took no further lessons at all. We were running through the manoeuvres before going to the test centre, and on one of them he was doing it totally wrong. I tried to explain how to do it and he snapped “look, you’re doing my f****** head in, I can’t be doing with this “.
At that point, I said “Fine! You’re doing MY f****** head in. I don’t get paid to put up with that kind of behaviour. Do it your own way. ”
For the whole session, he was not looking over his shoulder before moving off, he pulled across three cars at three successive roundabouts, he was driving too slow (last time, it was too fast). And so on.
But he passed with quite a high number of faults (a couple more would have been a fail). I couldn’t believe he got away with four for not looking over his shoulder! And he got several for driving too slow (adequate progress). I can see how the examiner saw him as a confident driver, and I expect that is what did it, but when I have excellent learners fail for a single mistake when they have otherwise been perfect, it does make me a little angry.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticising the examiner. And I’m glad this guy passed simply because I would have refused to give him any further lessons. But it’s a pass that gives me very little pleasure. I just hope I never get another ungrateful little sod like this ever again.