My mother learned to drive on the Prairies as a teenager.
She paid her $2, was given a driver's licence and then learned to drive. I learned in my teens as well, studying the driving guide, took a 20-question test, spent some time as a learner, passed a 20-minute road test and I had my licence.
My children both took driver training during their learner stage because I could afford it and felt it was an important life skill. They passed a 25-question test, spent time in the learner stage, were tested, moved on to the novice stage, were tested and then got their full licence.
Quite a difference, isn't it?
I would be willing to bet that all of us, the middle-aged or older better than average driver crowd, would be hard pressed to equal or better the score of a newly minted class 5 driver on ICBC's online driver's test.
I base that remark on what I see happening around me when I drive and the correspondence that I have had with visitors to my DriveSmartBC website.
Many drivers have failed to maintain the knowledge of the road rules that they need to drive safely and properly. In addition, the rules have changed since I obtained my class 5.
I challenge you! Visit www.icbc.com and look for the link to the Practice Knowledge Test on the home page below the green tab labelled New Driver.
Take the full test and answer all 25 questions that will be presented to you at random. Did you answer at least 80 per cent of the questions correctly?
If not and you were trying to obtain your learner's licence, you would be told to go home and study some more because you didn't have sufficient knowledge of the rules to start learning to drive.
Good luck!
For more information on this topic, visit www.drivesmartbc.ca. Questions or comments are welcome by e-mail to comments@drivesmartbc.ca. Tim Schewe is a retired RCMP constable with many years of traffic law enforcement experience. His column appears Friday.