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July 09, 2008
Get this woman some Ritalin
You know, it's a common joke to say women are bad drivers. Of course, lots of people are terrible drivers, regardless of their gender. But, I ask, how bad do you have to be to take 27 years to pass a driving test? This woman must know:
A woman has finally passed her driving test 27 years and 450 lessons after she first took to the road.
Teresa Clarke, a 62-year-old grandmother and mother-of-two, had her first lesson in 1981 shortly before American president Ronald Reagan was shot and Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer.
Since then she has been through 20 driving instructors, spent £15,000 in fees and had 450 hours of tuition. Despite all the work she failed 12 tests, cancelled a further 35 and had 50 mock exams.
But it was 13th time lucky when thanks to the help of her stepson, who runs a driving school, she finally was allowed to ditch her L-plates last month.
...
Mrs Clarke, a former shop assistant who is 5ft tall and has to sit on a cushion to reach the steering wheel, admits that she was a hopeless learner because she found it very difficult to concentrate for long periods of time.
Good God, she can't concentrate enough to drive? Is this the kind of person who should even get a driver's license? Maybe I'm wrong, but if you can't concentrate when you are driving a 2-ton piece of machinery at 60 miles an hour, and similar machines are coming straight at you, you might have a problem.
entry no. 1180
Posted at July 9, 2008 04:51 PM