In which Will finally gets his driving license, after 14 years of trying...

One of my many failings has always been my inability to drive. Having failed my theory so many times that I didn't even get round to taking a proper test, I had resigned myself to the reality that some people are born to be chauffeured, and I am perhaps fortunate enough to be among them.

However, fearless after the many challenges I've faced doing business out here, and persuaded by my wife, who I think was getting a little tired of driving 700km to Blantyre with me relaxing in the passenger seat, I decided that the time had come to take the plunge and learn to drive.

'Why don’t you just buy a license?' a friend asked me. 'You only have to give the examiner K20,000 to get a license and the lessons are going to cost you around that anyway.'

He had a good point, but I was adamant that if I was going to drive, I was going to do it honourably. Not least because I accept that if the Malawi Roads Authority deemed me unfit to drive, perhaps I really shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

It soon emerged that my stoicism would be rewarded. I'm not one to criticise my teachers, but I’m sure that if I'm to drive on some of the most dangerous roads in the world, at some point it's going to be necessary to go above 30km/h and indeed to do something other than going round a roundabout twice and reversing round a corner.

Apparently such fancies are deemed entirely ancillary to the basics of driving - which, of course, are roundabouts and reversing round corners. The test used to entail hill starts, driving on the open road, parallel parking and other more complex manoeuvres, but these were dropped because too many people were failing.
Or rather, according to my instructor, when people failed they just drove anyway and never came back to retake the test. And the authorities deemed it better to have a test that anyone can pass than one that no-one bothers to take. So in order to ensure success, one just practices the set test route again and again. Roundabout, reverse, roundabout, reverse, roundabout, reverse.

After the triumph of finally passing my theory test, which I have to admit was a little less thorough than the ones I have failed previously ('What does it mean when the robot says green?' 'What does this sign mean?' [pointing to a sign that says “stop”]), I was ready for my practical test.

Regardless of its apparent simplicity, for those seven minutes, the pressure was immense. Knowing that if I hit someone there was a small chance of failing, my concentration was total. However, it paid off and I am delighted to report that I passed. So after 14 years of trying, I finally have my driving license. Now all I have to do is learn to drive.