Update on ... ... driving

In Jerusalem last week, an 82-year-old woman finally passed her driving test after 36 attempts over the past 40 years. Shulamit Dezhin believes that she has always been an excellent driver, "but when I took the test I always got uptight and confused".

In Britain, figures published by the Driving Standards Agency in February indicate that women learner drivers do better than men in theory tests, but worse in the practical. In the theory exam, the pass rates were 75.1 per cent for women and 69.7 per cent for men, but the rate of passing for the driving test was 51.5 per cent for men and only 42 per cent for women.

In Britain, an NOP poll indicated that people who hog the middle lane on motorways were seen as a major irritant to 34 per cent of respondents, a figure surpassed only by the irritation-rating of junk mail.

French lorry-drivers were voted the most badly behaved group of people in 1996, in another NOP poll, ahead of the Government and the Royal Family.