I can't help thinking that something 'funny' is going on. When I was seventeen, the average person would take ten or twelve driving lessons and be more or less ready for their test. O.K., so some passed and some failed but that's normal, just like it is today.

Now learners are told (by the DSA) that they need around 40 lessons with an instructor PLUS plenty of private practice before they take their first test attempt.

Were we smarter back then?
Were the cars easier to drive?
Were the examiners 'nicer'(definitely not!)

So there's more traffic, granted. But if you pick a quiet day (and us instructors know when those are) there is no reason that someone should be taking so long.

It's no wonder that some parents think we are ripping them off!

Maybe they should be in the car when their little darlings have to be told the same things over and over again. You need to look in your rear-view mirror when slowing down. Is it really that hard to understand?

Once you have passed your test, you are responsible for yourself AND your passengers. If you slow down at a junction and the spanish lorry driver coming up behind is busy looking at his map and hasn't noticed your little Vauxhall Corsa sitting last in line at a junction...goodbye rear-seat passengers.

So is it down to computer games? Has everything gone 'virtual'? If you crash your scooby whilst playing 'Need for Speed', then no-one dies. Well listen up kids, life ain't like that.

I had a run of lads last year. They all passed first time, all with only a few minor faults, and all of them wrote off their car within two weeks of passing their test.

I even had a double. Two of them were mates and when one did a handbrake turn, the other couldn't stop in time and t-boned him. I certainly didn't teach 'em that!

At least no-one has died, yet. I guess it will happen sometime. It's hard though. We've all been there. I was the same. Not long after passing my test in 1977 (was it really that long ago?) I remember taking a mate for a spin in my mark 2 Cortina. Went through town and really gave it some. Round the corner and we were up on two wheels, about two feet above ground! When we got back to the cafe, Mike was busy creating my 'legend' status. In truth, I had been crapping my pants...but I wasn't letting anyone else know.

You know another thing that's bugging me? Foreigners! Now I'm not racist so don't get on that Shilpa trip with me but...it iritates me to see so many of them driving over here when it's obvious that they shouldn't be behind the wheel.

Take Thailand, for instance. The driving test consists of once around a field, in first gear if you like, then stop and collect your licence. Then come to Britain and drive 'legally' for twelve months totally unsupervised.

Then there's the drink-drive problem.

Every week, my local free paper carries the 'court report' and it's full of people called czxyrvitch or something like that, caught driving when they're three or four times over the legal drink limit.

Hell, I can't stand up after that much J.D., never mind pilot a car around the streets. Still, maybe they can't either, so they drive home. I mean, I'm all in favour of people trying for a better life, and if I was in their shoes, I'd be over here too. No problem, but I'm damn sure that if I went to Moscow and went out of my way to flout the laws, I wouldn't be still walking down the streets drinking from a can of Stella at eight in the morning and pissing up shop windows.

Bloody good job I'm a driving instructor and blessed with an abundance of self-control and patience, or I might just be a little 'miffed'