It is really an interesting experience if you plan to take a driving license without the aid of the driving school. Though I took my LMV license through a driving school, I decided to take the motorcycle one on-my- own. If you are on-your-own, there are quite a number of privileges that you have to forsake. You can avoid spending a considerable number of days (not hours!) at the Transport Bhavan (the dirty, dingy complex that is office to the RTO); you can bypass the extremely long queue (so long that it starts at the counter, runs right across the hall, down the stairs to some corner in the storey below); you can avoid the innumerable shuttles between home and the CALLS counter (Computer Aided Learner’s Licensing System) each time the MVI (Motor Vehicle Inspector) rejects your application (simply because no one except the driving-school-guys know how to fill the application form and all that goes with it); in short, a myriad inconveniences.
Unfortunately, I had to go through all this drama just to get a test date. Again you miss out a lot of leniencies on the day of the actual driving test. You will certainly miss the services of the M-80 Major, the ubiquitous milkman-motorcycle which every driving school possesses. With its wonderful maneuverability, it is a boon for anyone taking the figure-8 motorcycle test. These driving school guys alter the M-80 to such an extent that you don’t even have to touch the clutch! In case of the LMV H-test, you will have to miss out on the algorithm these guys have created to crack the H! Follow the algorithm and each time you reach a strategic point of the H (conveniently marked out by heaped leaves and lines scuffed on the ground), you just have to turn the steering wheel the prescribed number of times and so on until you are magically through the H.
In case you are shrewd enough, you can advantageously use the leaf-heaps these guys use to help their clients identify strategic points on the test track and more importantly that cigarette carton resting on that strategic rod in the H-test. Overhearing the instructions these guys give to their clients can give you a wealth of information without which you would cut a sorry figure in front of those MVIs. Those viva-voce questions, the hand signals, the live demonstrations …. I grabbed them with both hands and came out in flying colors. I owe a large portion of my success in the yesterday’s on-my-own motorcycle test to these driving school guys!
Unfortunately, I had to go through all this drama just to get a test date. Again you miss out a lot of leniencies on the day of the actual driving test. You will certainly miss the services of the M-80 Major, the ubiquitous milkman-motorcycle which every driving school possesses. With its wonderful maneuverability, it is a boon for anyone taking the figure-8 motorcycle test. These driving school guys alter the M-80 to such an extent that you don’t even have to touch the clutch! In case of the LMV H-test, you will have to miss out on the algorithm these guys have created to crack the H! Follow the algorithm and each time you reach a strategic point of the H (conveniently marked out by heaped leaves and lines scuffed on the ground), you just have to turn the steering wheel the prescribed number of times and so on until you are magically through the H.
In case you are shrewd enough, you can advantageously use the leaf-heaps these guys use to help their clients identify strategic points on the test track and more importantly that cigarette carton resting on that strategic rod in the H-test. Overhearing the instructions these guys give to their clients can give you a wealth of information without which you would cut a sorry figure in front of those MVIs. Those viva-voce questions, the hand signals, the live demonstrations …. I grabbed them with both hands and came out in flying colors. I owe a large portion of my success in the yesterday’s on-my-own motorcycle test to these driving school guys!
3 comments:
WOW! u did it without a driving school eh.. yea its quite how u put it, all those formalities, leniencies, tips ad tricks will be missed out.. its pretty hard not to spend the big bucks..
leaves for taking the H eh.. lol.. for me it was plastic bags !
Good that you didnt end up like our good old SVK......poor guy did he get the license this time? or did he leave it once and for all?? :D
@ Hari: When there is 3 months of vacation, its best to waste some time on the formalities.
@ Viajero: The endangered guy failed twice. Hopefully, he completes it in Mumbai!
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