Back behind the wheel: What’s it’s like to learn to drive – again

Hazel Sheffield passed her test at 17 but didn't drive for 10 years. She had forgotten everything and feared having to learn again ...

Off the road: Hazel had nightmares about careering downhill into heavy traffic (Hazel Sheffield)

I knew I was going to need refresher lessons because of the bad dreams. Every now and then I’d find myself behind the wheel of a car in my sleep, unable to remember which was the clutch and which was the brake, careering downhill into heavy traffic. I passed my driving test at 17 then moved away to university and then to London. That made it 10 long years since I’d been behind the wheel, so long that the thought of driving gave me nightmares.

I’m not alone. Of 12,231 AA members surveyed in 2009, 45 per cent said they would benefit from some kind of refresher training. About 600,000 said they had been off the road for so long that they had forgotten how to drive. There are many reasons that people learn to drive again. People like me who have been off the road for 10 years; elderly people learn again after the death of a spouse, if they have relied on that other person to get about. Others who move to the UK and have to apply for a British licence after two years to continue driving here.

“It’s very common for someone to pass their test at 17 or 18, go to university, then work in a city centre job and before you know it, they are in a position where they’ve not driven for years,” says Ian McIntosh, CEO of RED Driving School.

Sarah Gill, 34, decided to learn again after moving in with a boyfriend who couldn’t drive and being annoyed that they couldn’t hire a car to get their stuff across town. She had a licence, but had only tried to drive in London once over a decade ago. “The only other time I’d tried to drive a car was in the back lanes in the north London countryside. I was with my friends and I couldn’t remember why there were three pedals! So my main concern was safety and not killing someone,” she says.

She said she found getting back behind the wheel “really terrifying”. “I learned to drive in Nottinghamshire and this was living in Dalston. There was so much more traffic and people being erratic on the roads as well as pedestrians. I had a much greater sense that I was a driving a potential killing machine around, whereas maybe I didn’t think about that so much when I was 17 or 18,” she says.

Jodi Burian, 31, drove regularly in her native LA but had to take a test to drive a manual car after she moved to London. “Even though I’ve had a licence for 15 years, for the first four or five lessons it was like I had never driven before in my life. I was on the opposite side, learning manual and trying to pay attention to buses and cyclists appearing from everywhere. It was scary.”

Relearning can also be expensive. Most driving schools offer refresher lessons and driving instructors are used to reintroducing lapsed drivers to the roads. RED Driving School offers two refresher lesson packages, a four-hour and a six-hour package. The most popular is the four-hour package, which costs £100. “To many who are getting back on the roads after a long break, who may be faced with many other hefty costs such as insurance or buying a car, this seems like a lot of money. However, I would argue that you can’t put a price on safety and that this is something that all who haven’t driven in a while should consider a refresher course a necessity,” says Ian McIntosh.

My instructor Mahbub took me to a quiet spot where I could practise for hours (Hazel Sheffield)

Mahbub Choudhury, my RED instructor, picked me up near my flat in central London but drove me to a quiet housing estate behind King's Cross where I could practise driving in a square for hours at a time without encountering another vehicle. We started right from the beginning, by going through when to check mirrors, then talking through the small rituals that car-owners take for granted: adjusting the rear-view mirror, the carseat headrest and the position of the seat. I could remember the pedals, despite my fears, and my clutch control wasn’t half as bad as it could have been. But I had to be reminded about observation: how to use wing mirrors and where to look during manoeuvers.

Sarah agrees that getting back on the road isn’t just about picking up where you left off. “It wasn’t like riding a bike. I needed a lesson to remember a lot of stuff,” she says. She was really tense and anxious when she first started but her driving instructor used distraction tactics to get her to relax. “He started talking to me on my first lesson and part of me thought, ‘Why is he doing that, I’m trying to concentrate,’ but then I found my arms and legs did know what to do when I wasn’t thinking about it too much and I was able to relax into it a bit more,” she says.

Edmund King, AA president, says that as a passenger, it’s easy to forget the skills needed on the road. “Returning to driving after a break of any time can be fairly daunting. Having a refresher course with a qualified driving instructor can help increase confidence and develop lapsed skills. It is also important to re-educate yourself on the rules of the road which you may well have forgotten,” he says.

After six hours with an instructor, I felt much more confident. I never imagined how pleased I would be to drive down a heaving Euston Road, near King’s Cross in London, with cyclists coming from every angle and traffic lights every two minutes and not feel afraid. In situations like that, it’s good to know which pedal is the brake.

Hazel learned to drive (again) with Mahbub Choudhury, RED Driving School, 07456091124