"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 11:10:35 +0100, "NY" wrote:

snip

It's funny, I assume (obviously incorrectly in this case) that
*everyone* (and certainly in the sort of demographic we find here)
would have been involved in a motorbike of some sort at some time?

No, I've never ridden a motorbike. I went straight from walking to getting
a
car.

Maybe you are younger than some, or had more money or were 'put off'
motorbikes by your family?

It was the only way I could use something motorised when I was 16. ;-)

I started learning to drive, in a combination of my mum's car (Renault 6)
and an instructor's car (Honda Civic), as soon as I turned 17. I passed my
test (third attempt) shortly after my 18th birthday in 1981 (I failed the
second (*) time on my 18th - and the examiner commiserated that he wasn't
able to give me a pass certificate for my birthday!). But after that, apart
from driving mum's or dad's cars occasionally when we went on journeys, I
didn't drive much until my last year at university when I bought myself a
car because my final-year hall of residence was not on a bus route and was a
long way from the site where I was based. Until then, I walked between hall
and university, apart from occasional rainy days when I got the bus. I think
the majority of people walked or cycled: a few had hand-me-down cars and a
smaller number had motorbikes (yes, surprising that there were fewer with
motorbikes than cars). But I think I could walk up the very non-PC Blackboy
Hill quicker than my mate's Honda 50 moped could manage it ;-)


(*) I don't really count the first failure because I drew the short straw
and got "Mr Hemlock" who very rarely passed anyone. My instructor said
almost none of his pupils passed with Mr H, whereas roughly the same
proportion passed with all the other examiners. The only person I know who
passed was my next door neighbour who was in her 70s when she had to learn
(or re-learn) to drive after her husband became too ill to drive. Mr H said
"I am very sorry to have to tell you that I cannot find sufficient grounds
to fail you, so I obliged against my better judgement to pass you."
Apparently he was moved every few years from one test centre to another in
the Home Counties because he kept failing far more than the normal quota and
was obnoxious to "the public". I imagine if he kept that up, he would have
been disciplined at an "examiner's examination". On my test he gave me an
ambiguous instruction which I asked him to clarify "do you mean turn left
into X street or Y street" and he accused me of showing off my local
knowledge of street names, and on another occasion when I asked him whether
he would want me to turn left or go straight on at a junction some distance
ahead, so I could get into the correct lane in plenty of time, he blew his
top. When he did eventually tell me, I had to indicate far too late and got
hooted at for pushing in, so I explained *that* was why I'd asked several
hundred yards further back. So that wasn't a realistic fair test.