"T i m" wrote in message
...
He really did have an obnoxious and poisonous personality. There was
evidently no pleasing him.

That was often the stereotype of driving test examiners but ITRW they
were (mostly) just people doing a job. As in any field you get the odd
'special case' and he sounds like one of them.

The other two examiners I had were a lot more normal. One was a chap in his
twenties - he was the one who failed me on my reversing round a corner. The
other was the senior examiner (whom apparently they wheeled out for people
who had failed a couple of times). His attitude was "I'm sure you can drive
safely by now, but maybe you're a bit nervous and have made a couple of
silly mistakes that you've learned from". He looked through the reports from
the two previous tests - "Hmm, made a mistake while reversing around a
corner - another car came - that's a situation where you need to be told
what to do, because if you guess you might get it wrong. And who did you
have before - ah!" [significant "say no more" pause]. And he briskly started
the test, so he wouldn't be tempted to elaborate on "Mr Hemlock".



The "driving commentary" for the IAM test is a weird one. It takes a bit of
practice to be able to describe the road ahead and the actual or potential
hazards that you can see, while still driving safely without the commentary
distracting you. The problem is editing what you say, because things happen
far more quickly than you can put into words. I found I spoke in short
staccato bullet points, stripped of all unnecessary words - none of the
laid-back chat in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIgskqk5PB4 (leaving aside
the much quieter roads and the greater "politeness" in 1963), though I
suspect that the commentary was recorded later, after he'd had the benefit
of watching the film again. Some parts are a set-up: the red Triumph Herald
near Marlborough (sorry, "Mawlborough") has got to be a plant, to
demonstrate bad driving. One thing that always interests me about this
supposedly "exemplary" driver is how aggressively he sounds his horn several
times to "persuade" the Hillman Minx to move over to Lane 1 to allow him to
overtake https://youtu.be/YIgskqk5PB4?t=70. I might give a single headlamp
flash after a few seconds when the other driver could have moved over but
hasn't, but after that I'd sit tight, trying not to let my frustration show.
I wouldn't keep on hooting/flashing, because that would be to invite road
rage, of which a V sign (*) would be the least of my problem.


(*) Nowadays, with the US influence, it would probably be a middle-finger:
people can't even swear in British any more!