Cars

Impressing Sergeant

When I signed up for a defensive driving course, I didn’t know I’d have to be using my own car. Kinda thought there would be one waiting for me, a car equipped with adequate defences and protection against impact. That kind of thing, you know. But I guess this is what I get for choosing not only the budget option, but also a Defensive Driving course entitled ‘Sergeant Nasty’s Non-Crash Crash Course’.

Turns out that Sergeant Nasty is not a fun little persona (his name is Mark Nasty, and he actually works in the military while doing driving classes in his spare time) and he’s…well, nasty. Says that we need to bring our own car and make our own mistakes, and we feel that the most if we have to pay for it. And it’s true! When I ram into a barrier, I DO feel it. I feel the pain of knowing that my local mechanic near Northcote will be expecting me in again this Saturday, maybe for bodywork and maybe for something a bit more dire. At least I get some pity from the mechanics, because Sergeant Nasty has none.

You might be wondering why I don’t just quit. Well, aside from the fact that the course is twelve weeks and non-refundable, I am actually learning a lot. The more I learn, the less I have to get auto repairs because that’s the point of the course: making you into a better driver and reducing the quantity of accidents. Sergeant Nasty is really nasty, but he’s also a good teacher. In our last lesson all that happened with a collision with a bumper. Had to take the car into the garage to get the bodywork sorted out, but otherwise, I felt confident with everything being (literally) thrown at me while I was driving.

Looks like I’ll be just fine. The mechanic open for car servicing in Northcote is going to have to be content with the regularly scheduled services instead of weekly patch-ups. So it’s an investment, overall.

-Ian