Well today was an interesting day at work. The third test today was awful, I genuinely thought that she was trying to kill me. I It seemed very likely that someone had paid her to “rub me out” or somesuch as they say on TV.

So, when I managed to coax that one back, I was feeling quite smug. Until the next test…

The girl in question was lovely, very friendly and had made a good stab at the questions at the beginning of the test. We had headed off and were making our way down to the main roundabout in Rotherham, which is about 3-4 minutes drive from the test centre. We get there and she lines up correctly in the middle lane and pulls up. The lorry next to us in the right lane decides to go and my candidate (what we call people on test) decides to wait and places her handbrake on. All looking good.

Until the lorry jinks to the left as he pulls away, this is no problem as he is a good few inches away. Problem is that the back of the trailer, as anyone who has towed an LGV, trailer or caravan will know, transcribes a smaller arc. To wit: It cuts the corner.

Unfortunately the corner that it cut contained our car, the lorries back wheels scraped very badly against the side of the car, ripping off the door mirror, front bumper and part of the wing. Obviously the poor girl is hysterical at this point, and I have to admit that I have felt better. The lorry driver realises that something is wrong and stops in the right hand lane, I then help my candidate, with the use of the dual brake and clutch, to move the car so that we are a bit more out of the way. We pull up, I check that she is alright, and get out of the car to speak to the lorry driver. Now bear in mind that I am a driving examiner, in the middle of a test and this driver has genuinely nearly killed the girl in the car, who is now bawling her eyes out. What do you think the first words out of this mans mouth were?

“That wasn’t my f***ing fault”. Did you get that? Not “I’m sorry” or even more importantly “How is she?” No. I hadn’t said a word at this point, but for the first time since I started the job I am really struggling to keep my cool and remain professional, but I just about manage. I take his details, give him the instructors and mine, and go back to the girl. I calm her some more, she is okay but I want her to stay in the car, safest place for her. I cannot get her instructors mobile as she has left her ‘phone at home, and I cannot ring work as we are all out on test.

I get out to see if there is anything that the driver needs from me, and he is on the ‘phone to his boss, when he gets off he says this timeless classic:

“My boss says that you have to sign a piece of paper and say that it was your fault and you drove into the back of me….”

He didn’t get to finish that sentence, and I have to admit that I now lost my cool…

“Into the back of you? WE WERE STATIONARY, WITH THE PARKING BRAKE ON! Your back wheels drove OVER our car! How can you explain the front wing and the bumper being ripped forward if we hit you? Hmmm?”

And at this point I walked away, to look after the poor girl and walk her back to the test centre. It is only know I realise the power that my job entails, I stopped the busiest roundabout in Rotherham, all of the traffic to get her across safely.  And no one complained!

To end the story both the girl and myself are fine and were laughing about it later. Although it is not so good for the instructor at least it is quite an old car, and he was planning on getting a new one. Just as well as I think that his old one will be a write off…

Ta ra.

Well, it’s been a while. I will really have to update this more often. I really will. Anyway what’s been happening to me? Well the main thing was last week, when I came home to this:

And as you can probably guess, I had been burgled. In fact there was an attempt about two weeks earlier, but they must have been disturbed. They took my faithful old laptop, and my Xbox 360 and all of the games etc. So the last few days has been police, insurance, phone calls, changing passwords on websites and so on. Helpfully my laptop had some photos and scripts from the next NSD that I hadn’t backed up. Gah.

In other news, I finally remembered to upload this:

This is the class of October ‘07 at Cardington, not the most flattering photo of all of these stunningly beautiful people, but hey ho. (Names have been withheld to protect the innocent.) I will put a bigger one in my gallery once I get the website working again.

On that, I updated it the other day, and then had to change the passwords due to the theft, and now it eeeees broken. I shall persevere, just not sure when yet!