“Fall seven times, stand up eight,” says a Japanese proverb. In this woman’s case, it was more like “fall 17 times over the course of 12 long years, but stand up 18, proudly holding your driver’s license to show the world.”
Women are notoriously terrible drivers, if you believe the hype. Blessing Platinum-Williams, a 31-year-old woman from Watford, in Hertfordshire, England, came to believe it, too, because she was repeatedly and consistently not able to pass the test to get her driver’s license. It wasn’t for lack of trying: she took the test 17 times over the course of 12 years.
Her story is more or less a not-so-subtle advertorial in the Daily Mail, but it’s still an intriguing one. Many people, and not just women, get extremely nervous during exams, so hearing that she somehow “lost it” on the day of her driving test because of nerves – and that she did so repeatedly – would have been understandable.
But Mrs. Platinum-Williams is blaming all her former driving instructors for the fact that, as she puts it, she ranked a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of driving. She took 100 hours of driving lessons before she hired the trainer that eventually helped her pass the test, “so [she] wasted a lot of money,” she says.
She took her first test in 2008 and then, for 12 years, continued to do so, and kept failing. She grew desperate and depressed, and even started booking exams in other towns with higher pass rates, thinking this would somehow help.
The bottom line was that she was a terrible driver, she explains. She didn’t know what to do at roundabouts and how to interact with other drivers, and in time, she lost whatever confidence she might have had in herself when she started.
This week, Blesssing got her driver’s license in the mail, after taking lessons and the test during lockdown and shortly after restrictions lifted. So here’s to hoping this isn’t just a case of a person blaming their own faults on someone else (some people are just not meant to drive, you know; it’s not a big deal). Because if is, the people of Watford would better watch out.
Her story is more or less a not-so-subtle advertorial in the Daily Mail, but it’s still an intriguing one. Many people, and not just women, get extremely nervous during exams, so hearing that she somehow “lost it” on the day of her driving test because of nerves – and that she did so repeatedly – would have been understandable.
But Mrs. Platinum-Williams is blaming all her former driving instructors for the fact that, as she puts it, she ranked a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of driving. She took 100 hours of driving lessons before she hired the trainer that eventually helped her pass the test, “so [she] wasted a lot of money,” she says.
She took her first test in 2008 and then, for 12 years, continued to do so, and kept failing. She grew desperate and depressed, and even started booking exams in other towns with higher pass rates, thinking this would somehow help.
The bottom line was that she was a terrible driver, she explains. She didn’t know what to do at roundabouts and how to interact with other drivers, and in time, she lost whatever confidence she might have had in herself when she started.
This week, Blesssing got her driver’s license in the mail, after taking lessons and the test during lockdown and shortly after restrictions lifted. So here’s to hoping this isn’t just a case of a person blaming their own faults on someone else (some people are just not meant to drive, you know; it’s not a big deal). Because if is, the people of Watford would better watch out.