IT WAS about a year ago this week when I made the most courageous decision of my life and stepped back into a driving instructor's vehicle. Trusting me with your car is rather like trusting Michael Jackson with your children. There shouldn't be any danger, but why take the risk?

My fragile ego makes it impossible for me to reveal how many times I failed my driving test, but my uncle did once suggest that Ray Charles was a better driver.

To give you an idea of how the British driving test was changed and made more difficult in the ensuing years, I think my first examiner asked me to drive forward in a straight line for 400m without spilling a pint of beer.

When I failed, my father was disgusted to learn that I couldn't handle my ale.

He failed his first driving test and then gave up before finally passing a decade later. He was a plumber and travel was becoming too inconvenient. You try carrying 10m of copper piping, a monkey wrench and a ball cock on a bus.

If he could pass his test, then so could I.

As I hurtled towards three lanes of oncoming traffic at one of the busiest roundabouts in the south-east of England, I began to have nagging doubts.

The roundabout is called Gallows Corner in Essex. Gallows is an appropriate name because it was built to kill people.
Imagine the Newton roundabout with twice as many lanes, a wider flyover and an idiot on his driving lesson.

My instructor told me to take the third on the left. I passed the second on the left and started to switch lanes. I indicated too late and you know what's coming next...

About 20 cars from the second turning on the left.

My driving instructor yelped. He actually yelped. For the first time in 15 years of driving instruction, his dual-control pedals were less useful than a sheepskin coat in the Sahara.

"Just keep going, keep going," he yelped. He was getting rather good at yelping.

Like a surreal movie scene, half a dozen cars on our left swerved or screeched and the roundabout behind us came to a standstill as we trundled off towards the Essex sunset.

After that lesson, my driving instructor pointed out that: a) I did not have the makings of a competent driver; b) for the first time in 15 years, he felt powerless and, c) his hands were still shaking.

So if you are contemplating driving lessons, or you've failed a couple of tests, or you've caused such a traffic pile-up at the Newton roundabout that you are now a household name on radio traffic reports, then allow me to steer you into the light.

You can do it. You can do it because I did it.

I had been resigned to life in the passenger seat until two things happened.

First, my wife and I began to think about starting a family and it's difficult to take a pregnant woman to hospital on the back of a mountain bike when her water breaks. I tried to simulate an emergency with my bike, my wife and a packet of water balloons, but we just made a mess of the pavement.

And second, we were sitting at a junction one afternoon when a teenager pulled up beside us. His stereo measured on the Richter scale, which didn't affect his eardrums because he'd had a lobotomy during puberty.

I took a good look at him. He was half my age. He was bloody half my age. When I took my first driving lesson, this guy was having his soiled underwear changed by an appropriate adult. Perhaps he still does, but that isn't the point.

Enough was enough. I called a driving instructor, took some lessons, did my test, thought about the stereo-pumping knuckle-scraper and passed the damn thing.

And here we are, almost a year later. I haven't hit anything, but I have turned into Expert Know-It-All driver. I now criticise everyone else's driving, which is my right as a driver of less than a year's experience.

To mock my righteous outbursts, my wife sings Righteous Brothers songs over my ranting, which makes for some bizarre exchanges.

"Did you see him in that gas guzzler?" I shout. "Look how fast he's going."

"You never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips..."

"It's just not right, this is a built-up area, you know."

"And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips..."

"The idiot shouldn't be allowed on the road."

"You've lost that loving feeling... Oh, that loving feeling."

Ironically, my car now spends most of its time parked. Paranoid about carbon footprints, I cycle more now than I did before I owned a driving licence, but at least there's a choice.

And any future children won't have to sit in a bicycle basket looking like ET.

Neil Humphreys' Singapore book, Notes From An Even Smaller Island, has been re-released.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Apr 12, 2008.