Clutching at straws

I'M OF the school of thought that if God had meant man to drive cars he would have given us furry dice instead of testicles. Nevertheless, I have started taking driving lessons.

I have a chequered history when it comes to cars. As a child, I believed that they were propelled along by air coming out of the exhaust pipe - a slice of naivete that comes close, but does not quite equal my long-standing belief that the Old Grey Whistle Test was about sheepdog trials (although the all-time gullibility gong goes to a friend who was persuaded by her parents that when the ice cream van sounded its chimes, that meant it had run out of ice cream).

Anyway, cars. I fear them. It's not an irrational fear, it really makes a lot of sense. I'm frightened of getting behind the controls of anything that has the ability to propel me into a crowd of people at 60 mph. And don't talk to me about safety features; if I wanted a face full of airbag I'd hang out with Kerry Katona (I'm just the right height).

So driving lessons were always going to go as smoothly as a porcupine nuzzling a nail file. I first started learning 12 years ago, aged 17, at the same time as the rest of my school year. But while my peers quickly mastered the gnomic arts of three-point turns and - having passed on their first attempt - wasted no time in getting themselves mashed underneath tractors on country roads, I trundled along at 20, in mortal terror of going up to fourth gear, swerving for squirrels and generally acting as if ABC stood for "a bit crap" rather than accelerator, brake, clutch.

Then my instructor had a nervous breakdown. It wasn't, apparently, my fault, but it did emerge that he had deliberately held back from teaching me anything that would cause him to panic - emergency stops, hill starts or driving on roads with other traffic.

The instructor who replaced him had an MA in Sarcasm Studies from The University Of Aye Right. The motor car and I soon parted company and that was that for over a decade. Maybe I should have stuck at it though, as it sounds like I had it easy. A colleague has been seething ever since, in the middle of a lesson, his instructor asked to be driven home, nipped in to use the toilet, and emerged 15 minutes later looking considerably more relaxed. An emergency plop, I believe they call it.

My new instructor is above such antics. He thinks of higher things. For Sushil, driving is an art, a craft, a philosophy. He reaches the parts other instructors cannot.

Sushil is a musician, known as the Future Pilot AKA. He used to be in The Soup Dragons and BMX Bandits and, famously, turned down Kylie when she asked him to play bass on tour. "She should be so lucky!" he says, when you ask. One day he turned up for our lesson with a guitar in the back seat, fresh from a recording session with David Byrne.

He's an unorthodox instructor, but it works for me. When he thinks I'm looking at the tachometer too often he covers it with a beer mat bearing the face of a gurning monkey; during the World Cup he flagged up my mistakes by blowing a whistle and holding up an imaginary yellow card. Occasionally he will illustrate a point using music. It's easier to remember the technique of dancing - moving the feet swiftly from the brake to the gas just as you are coming to a halt - when your instructor sings the chorus of Bowie's Let's Dance. The guy even offers lessons in Punjabi. I'm occasionally tempted to book one just to see how it goes.

Sushil has his work cut out with me. It seems that all the nutters in Glasgow rush to crowd the kerbside when I am driving; urchins are forever stepping out between parked cars while wrestling with wriggling puppies. And the roads themselves aren't much better, what with rickety neds racing each other down the Malnutrition Superhighway.

I've often thought that this situation would be improved by the addition of psychometric questions to the theory test. Success or failure could depend upon how you reply to "What is your favourite film?" Casablanca? Welcome to a brave new world of motoring.

The Cannonball Run? Get back on shanks's pony, Burt Reynolds. Similarly, Rorschach tests could be employed to discover whether a learner driver is a road-rager in waiting. If you see the inkblot that everyone else perceives as bunnies kissing, as a head-on collision between two articulated lorries, then the only wheel you should be behind is the one that unlocks your padded cell.

Of course, for now I shall have to continue my lessons without such measures. Sushil is talking about me sitting my test by the end of the year and I just hope I have the furry dice to go through with itu Email Peter at peter.ross@sundayherald.com

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