Am I an optimist? If so then I’m super happy that I’ve cracked the reverse manoeuvre. If not then I’m really outrageously pissed off that I then went and failed on the road!
This time he said I was passing too close to parked vehicles (if I’d have touched one then I would have agreed with him, as it was I was only close. If some fool can’t see a truck that is thirteen feet four inches high, the width of a lane, and the best part of sixty foot long they deserve to lose the door they are opening! Doors width gap my arse. We were going around Manchester, if I’d have stopped every time I had less than a doors width clearance I would still be on my test now.) That and my left turns. He rightly said that on a few occasions I should have hogged two lanes to get the position for a left turn, but again I think it should have been a minor fault (as opposed to a serious/fail one) as I still made each turn. I didn’t have to force anyone to give me more room, I did it all legit. I made it harder for myself, but I still did it. He reckoned I had mounted one pavement. I dispute that. As far as I’m aware I scuffed one. Not the same thing at all.
So, I finally got the hang of the reverse, (though I still had to take one shunt) then blew it on the road. I seriously do think I was marked harshly, but until I pass I’ve got to do it their way. To rub salt into the wounds, as we were turning into the street off which the training place’s yard is situated, an artic coming the other way saw how tight it was so just drove over the pavement! Six wheels, deliberate! Real world.
My run out today proved that it was just through being rusty. I flew through my first road test, the second I made two silly mistakes, this time I just wasn’t thinking truck. I was driving it confidently, but without the proper preparation for each arising situation. Just down to being rusty, and tired. I got about three hours sleep last night. Coming off a 2-10, trying to wind down, then trying and failing badly to get to sleep. I had terrible sleep when I did get off, and was awake before the alarm at about four thirty five.
This meant a tired and rusty Bucky.
I got home in a state of high dudgeon. I only had enough credit to take one more test, no more lessons, and that not for three weeks. I could only get rustier.
I had to reset my credit card internet account (as when it had asked me what the third letter of my password was I went A, B, C. The third letter is C. Three times! Yes it’s the third letter of the alphabet but that wasn’t the question, dumb-arse!)
Account reset I went on to see how much I had left on that card, (with the intention of paying the remainder on the other card, and maybe cash if they wouldn’t cover it) and they have doubled my credit limit!
It’s an Xmas miracle!
Got back on to the training place and cancelled my test, moved it back a week, and now have four hours training on Tuesday the twelfth of May, test the next day. And credit enough to keep training and testing until I do pass it.
Wendy is pointing out the cloud that wraps my silver lining, to whit I’m running up more debt, but unless I can pass I can’t pay it off. Well, I could. As a class II driver, but I can’t do it and stay in my secure job. They only have two rigid trucks in the fleet at ours, so only employ people who have both classes of truck license.
The story drags on. It was four goes to pass my rigid, and I am so much better in the artic than I ever was in that.
Running total with the lesson and test I booked today, from car to here, £4,200!
Gulp.
Toodles,
Buck.