Is it still worth to drive or even improving driving by ourselves today? What will I benefit from learning to drive and drive on the road? Is it harder to drive in the “A country” compare to the “B country”? Lot of questions pumps up before I decide to book a driving test in the UK in 2026, roughly 2 years after I moved from Shanghai to London.
I used to learn a Chinese driving license in the year of 2014/2015, though I found I learned barely nothing when I drive my father’s car on the roads in Canton (Guangzhou), I have not too much sense to the mirror-check, nor the width of my car, intimidating by driving on a narrow road, nonethless the bendy broken rural roads, actually I did fell into a ditch near a paddy field in my home village once.
The city roads in China are wide, straight, and always in good condition, much less complex junctions, much bigger and clear road sign. The real problem is the drivers, they are not fully trained obviously, as a cautious driver in China, the biggest challenges always comes from other road users instead of roads themselves. The reason behind it may varies. But despite of it, the more important is what can I learn from it and how can I keep safe no matter where I live? (Yes, I didn’t even mention “driving” here)
United Kingdom, as one of the most powerful developed country in the world, ironically, provide me somehow the worst civil public services from my first visit: roads in poor maintainence, trains always in disruption, streets are dangerous in pickpocket and robbery, everything shocks me in the public services domain. Western peoples are just get used to it, no one take absolutely safe in granted, until they’d been in Singapore, Tokyo or Shanghai. After few months and even longer time, I gradually find, “I never seen a single accident like collision on the roads”. It is nearly impossible to fail of witnessing a car accident in any cities or towns if you drive more than 30 km in China. How do the people here keep themselves safe from accidents, this is a trigger pull me into the field of driving, I’m so curious!
People comes from the rest of the world which follow the right-side passing rules felt uneasy to get used to the left-side passing rules in the first times. It is good to learn the Highway Code even you don’t have a car yet, there is a lot of things worth to know before you are using the roads with other vehicles and pedestrians, or any road users, otherwise, you may be fined or put yourself in danger by your careless or ignorance.
I used to worry about getting used to the left-side passing, because I felt a kind of uncontrollable, subconscious gravity to the right side when I tried to cycling on the road. “NO, WRONG ROAD” alert me when I faced to a running vehicle in the minor roads near my home, luckily, most of them drive slowly in the residential area, I tried to remind myself constantly when I cycling on the roads, and invested a lot efforts before I “fully” get used to it. Things going easier when I took my very first driving learning session near my home, and I found it is even easier to build up such intuition during meeting situation, cuz you definitely don’t want to scratch oncoming traffics, position yourself to the left side is no-doubt convenient for you to monitor both oncoming vehicle and yours. The real challenges comes from this part always connect to other deceptive familarities.
Learning how to drive reward me far beyond merely driving itself, It cultivate me an abuntful sense in safety, spacious, forward thinking and anticipation. Many of them could be adopted in sports also, while unfortunately I’m not so good at sport before learning driving, so I have to compensate myself to complete the missing puzzle.
Before booking a practical driving test, you need to go through the theory test, mainly related to the Highway code, road signs and variety rules for every road users. Memorising those volume of clauses is boring though it will never be an obstacle for a Chinese people who had gone through endless examinations in their junior and high school time.
Practical driving test in the UK is the 2nd hardest one around the world, and there is a still lot of things to learn after you just passed this test in some lucky day. Getting a full-license give you confidence to drive independently on roads, but not a full-guarantee to keep yourself and your passengers in safe.