Our driving test is too ridiculously strict, so when some people pass they disregard both the important rules as well as the unimportant rules.

It's just like how making overly-unrealistic New Year resolutions inevitably results in them going unfulfilled. (The Economics of New Year’s Resolutions)

Or, for that matter, how if you villify pot and kids find out it's harmless, they won't believe you when you say Ice makes your teeth fall out, and go on to take it as well.

Incidentally, I passed with 8 points: 4 for veering off course, 4 for 3 additional reverse movements required for parallel parking (1 was free - apparently I went too far in at first), 0 for failing to look at a junction (it was free) and 0 for failing to check the blind spot twice (both free too).

[Addendum: Brother in law: "i think it is ludicrous to deduct points for making additional movements for parallel parking. these testing people have never parallel parked on a slope in San Francisco."]

Of the 16 people in my detail, only 3 watched the safety video in the timeslot. I guess I was lucky (first attempt, too).

The school is very cunning. In the room where they screen the safety video, there's a notice advising new drivers to drive with someone more experienced for a while. And then they offer supplementary courses for expressway and town driving, and parking without poles and in multistorey carparks. Considering that most of their instructors look very young (in contrast, it seems there've been no new private instructors since 1985).

Tym: Congrats. Join the adult world in endangering lives everywhere! (and people call *me* cynical)