Eight seats
For some reason, most cars have four or five seats.
The Fiat Multipla has six, and then a large group of people carriers (like our Citroën C8) have seven seats.
However, anybody needing more than seven seats has until now needed to buy a minibus.
However, now Hyundai have introduced an eight-seater!
It even appears to have a decent-sized boot, so it would be really useful for a big family.
It suddenly seems like our main obstacle for having any more kids after the girl who is expected to come out in January has suddenly disappeared! 
Watching the wheels
Shortly after I got my driving license, we went to Tuscany on holiday.
My parents, who we were visiting, thought it would be good for me to learn to drive on the right, too, so they let me drive their car, a Fiat Multipla.
One feature of that car is that it has split wing mirrors (see the photo): The top part is a normal wing mirror, while the bottom part is fixed to show the bottom edge of the car.
It’s probably designed to make parking easier (and it definitely works for that purpose), but I found it invaluable to learn to gauge the width of the car.
Basically, at first I had no idea where the edge of the road was, but once I learned to check the bottom mirror, I found I could see precisely where I was.
I probably only used it intensively for an hour or two, and I then got a really good feel for the width of the car.
Actually, when I returned to the UK, I realised that I actually felt less able to gauge the width of my own car.
It’s not really the kind of thing you need all the time, but it would be a wonderful feature every time you drive a new car.
Bilejer
Som jeg har skrevet før, bestod jeg køreprøven i sidste uge.
Phyllis’ forældre brugte det som en undskyldning for at skifte deres biler ud, og vi fik så lov til at købe Anns gamle bil.
Da Phyllis er ejer af vores Citroën C8, besluttede vi, at jeg skulle stå som ejer af den fire år gamle Nissan Micra S.
Vi er begge forsikret til begge biler, så reelt bliver Micraen nok bilen til småture og Citroënen bilen til længere weekendture.
Men det er altså min første bil, og jeg tror såmænd nok, jeg skal blive glad for den.
Third time lucky
Today is a great day: It’s 40 years since man first set foot on the Moon, and I finally passed my driving test!
It was my third attempt: The first time I overlooked an unmarked junction, and the second time I was being so careful not to do the same again that I failed for being excessively cautious.
But today everything went smoothly – I only picked up two driving faults, which is really good (you’re allowed up to 14 if I remember correctly).
Some of my Danish friends have commented that it must be hard learning to drive on the left, but it actually was surprisingly easy, but then I’ve lived here for more than seven years now. It probably would have been much harder if I had tried to pass it just after moving to Scotland.
Now I have to learn motorway driving (you’re not allowed near a motorway until you pass the test), and driving on the right next time we’re on the continent.
How to pass your driving test
I ordered some instructional DVDs from the DSA some time ago, and one of them contained the brilliant film from 1935 about how to pass your driving test:
I already feel much more confident that I’ll pass!
Theory test
I passed my theory test today!
It consisted of two parts: The actual theory questions and a hazard perception test.
The first half was quite easy, given that you can buy a CD with all the questions and answers so that it’s “just” a question of memorising all 882 of them. (I got 50 out of 50 in this part, which is why I might be sounding a bit cocky.)
However, from the perspective of giving you knowledge that you’ll actually need as a driver, I’m not entirely impressed. For instance, consider this:
The cost of your insurance may reduce if you
- are under 25 years old
- pass the driving test first time
- do not wear glasses
- take the Pass Plus scheme
Isn’t this just an ad for the Pass Plus programme?
Other questions seem to be about the English language rather than about your abilities as a driver, e.g.:
‘Tailgating’ means
- using the rear door of a hatchback car
- following another vehicle too closely
- reversing into a parking space
- driving with rear fog lights on
Yet others can be answered with a bare miminum of common sense. For instance:
You see a car coming out from a side road in front of you. What do you do?
- Swerve past it and sound your horn
- Slow down and be ready to stop
- Flash your headlights and drive up close behind
- Accelerate past it immediately
I’m not much happier about the perception test. It’s not just because I only got 61 out of 75 in this part, but I think it’s fundamentally flawed.
They show you brief video clips of a car driving through actual traffic, and you then have to press the mouse button whenever you see a hazard.
However, there are no minus points for clicking too often (unless you really overdo it), and you’re not asked to identify the hazard, so I’m pretty sure you could just about scrape through if you just click every time you see something move.
In an ideal world, you should be sitting next to an examiner, telling them which hazards you spot and why you think they’re hazards, but even within the current system, surely it would be easy enough to make people click on the hazard itself.
Speed limits
In all other countries I know, motorways are the fastest type of road.
The speed limit is typically 130 km/h, but it can be as low as 100 km/h in some countries, but in those countries all other roads are then often limited to 80 km/h.
I think the Dutch situation on the photo is typical for mainland Europe: 50 in built-up areas, 80 on normal roads, 100 on dual carriage-ways, and 120 on motorways.
However, the UK is really odd (official speed limits converted to km/h and rounded): 48 in built-up areas, 97 on normal roads and 113 on both dual carriage-ways and motorways.
What’s going on? What’s the point of motorways if you can drive just as fast elsewhere?
A single European sky
I saw today that plans for a Single European Sky are progressing nicely.
This refers to regulating the airspace on a regional level, instead of doing it nationally.
According to the article, “when implemented, the reform would result in routes shortened by 50 kilometres for every 800 kilometres flown and in CO2 emission reductions of at least 12 percent.” That sounds pretty good to me!
It just sounds absurd that this is taking so long to implement – in theory, this should be a no-brainer, but it is probably too closely related to national security interests to make it easy.
I wonder whether this will lead to new cheap routes – in theory, certain routes will have been unprofitable because the obvious way to get there was not a permissible flight route.