I never took Drivers Ed, it had been an elective class in high-school but it was eliminated about a year or two before I was eligible. So the only way to get Drivers Ed was through a private company and my parents couldn't afford that. Under the law Drivers Ed was required to get a license at 16 but not at 18 so I didn't get my license until 18.
I didn't really have any trouble with the written exam to get a permit. Then my Dad took me out and ran me through all kinds of driving drills; parallel parking, starting from a stop on a hill with a manual transmission, finding the optimal line to navigate an S turn at speed. None of these were part of the driving test and I'm pretty sure a few would be an automatic failure if I tried them on the test.
When it came to the actual driving test to get my license I failed multiple time, even losing my learners permit and having to take the written test again to get it back. I wasn’t a bad driver so much as I think the people administering the tests could have benefited from professional therapy. One woman was very overweight and kept her hand on the emergency brake the entire time, which due to her size meant I had to hold my arm at a weird angle to shift gears. She failed me for struggling to shift gears. Another woman had me back up through the parking lot. So I tuned around in my seat to look out the back window, at one point I glanced over at the side mirror to make sure I wasn't too close to the curb since you can’t actually see the curb out the back window. Apparently checking the mirror qualified as "not watching the road" and I got an automatic failure. There was a guy who kept his head down and staring at his clipboard the entire drive, I never once saw him look at me, the road or anything else in the car. He said I failed but wouldn't tell me why beyond saying "You made too many mistakes." Another guy gave me an automatic failure for hitting a pothole.
The one I remember best was an older woman with a bit of attitude. The first words out of her mouth was asking if I was Steven, I gave her my full name as way of confirmation and she snapped at me saying it was a Yes or No question. At that point I figured that was going to fail again no matter what so why bother. I went through the motions and did the drive anyway but kept all my responses to one word or less. Then we came to a stop sign at an intersection, I noticed a big white truck was approaching on the cross street at such a speed that I was wondering if he saw the Stop Sign or if he was planning to just run it anyway, he showed no signs of even slowing down. So I decided to wait a few seconds rather than risk getting T-boned on the Drivers side. This woman started screaming at me "This is a 4 way Stop, do you even know what means?!" I was struggling to not yell back as I turned in my seat, looked her square in the eyes and said "Yes! I know exactly what that means! But.." I was about to tell her I was waiting to see if the truck was going to stop. Except I didn't need to as I was interrupted by the screeching of tires as the truck driver slammed on his brakes several feet too late trying to stop at the sign. She turned and saw the guy skidding to a stop part of the way into the intersection. I kept looking at her the whole time, then in a much softer, calmer tone said. "But I wasn't sure that white truck knew what a 4 way stop is" I then drove through the intersection as the truck was backing up to get out of the way. Her demeanor changed after that, she didn't look at me, she was quiet when she spoke and had me drive straight back to the DMV. When I parked the car she simply said "You passed" then got out and went inside.
Once dad stepped up in desperation to have an extra driver in our family, I agreed to be taught.
