Well, whatever that was – we’ll call it “summer” – is over and Labour Day beckons, full of over-blown expectations that no matter how good the weather is on Labour Day, it will be even better the day after.
Summer’s out. School’s in. For children, there is a sense of excitement. For adults, many of whom have not been in school for decades, there is an uneasy sense of not having done their homework.
The end of summer reminds me of graduation. I passed my driver’s test at age 16 in late August in 1982 after studying over the summer at my nearby high school. Classrooms were hot and lectures dry. We were shown a film of a “stoned rat” to demonstrate the dangers of driving while drunk or high. We were taught the rules of the road and safety tips. We were told never to change lanes while driving through an intersection and to leave at least three seconds of space between you and the car in front of you.
During a smoke break, our male instructor took a few of us boys aside and told us, “If you are parked with a girl in a car during the winter and the engine is running, make sure the exhaust pipe is not blocked by snow or you might die of carbon dioxide poisoning before you finish parking.”
Flash forward two or three hundred years and I wonder if I would pass a driver’s exam today. I consider myself a better driver. I have experience. I’m older. I’m less inclined to put on my football helmet and play “shoot the gap” on Carling Avenue while driving myself and fellow Nepean Norsemen teammates to football practice. But is “experienced” just another way of saying “bad habits?”
Perhaps I’m pessimistic. I’d wager that half the experienced drivers out there would fail today’s driver’s exam. I know that times have changed but I’m sure that driving the wrong way up a one-way street, driving 40 kilometres an hour over the speed limit in a 30 km/h zone and almost running a cyclist off the road (all of which I witnessed over the weekend) are not permissible.
A new survey by Zutobi, the maker of a mobile driver’s education app, asked 1,000 U.S. adults aged 18 to 54 and a single question: “If you had to retake your driving test tomorrow with no preparation, how confident are you that you’d pass?” Slightly more than half (56 per cent) said they were sure they’d pass. Male drivers were more confident than female ones. One in eight said they would “probably” or “definitely” fail.
A 2025 study out of the United Kingdom conducted by British insurance company Direct Line found 95 per cent of licensed drivers would fail a “resit” of a theory test. A stunning 1,900 out of 2,000 drivers failed a stripped-down test consisting of 15 randomly selected questions from the 50-question theory test.
“These findings are a stark reminder that many people are not keeping up to date with the latest rules,” Matt Pernet, head of motor insurance at Direct Line told the Daily Telegraph. “And should serve as a wake-up call to encourage all drivers to regularly refresh their knowledge.”
That’s the thing about a driver’s licence. You pass the test and you never have to pass that test again, unless you drink and drive, speed, or kill someone (and even then, they’ll let you drive again). Age eventually becomes a factor. Drivers in Ontario must renew every two years after they turn 80 by booking an appointment to complete a vision assessment and pass a five-minute cognitive screening exercise. Only if you fail these two are you required to pass a road test.
It’s strange that such a potentially dangerous activity as driving doesn’t require regularly retesting on the road.
I visit the dentist for a check-up every six months. You only rarely hear of anybody killing someone with their teeth (automobiles are another matter). It’s up to drivers to do the responsible thing and try to maintain their driving prowess. I’ve taken courses to refresh manual transmission driving skills. I’ve participated in winter driving courses. It’s the proper and (if you like driving as much as I do) fun thing to do.
Of course, nothing will ever match the excitement and yes, romance, of that high school driver’s education course. A driver’s licence promised freedom. It was a significant step on your journey to adulthood. Such sunny thoughts are, for the most part, no longer universally held, especially by the young who, if they live in cities, aren’t that obsessed by getting their driving papers. They’re a quaint relic of a bygone era populated by stoned rats and blocked tailpipes and, armed with my new licence, late August drives that seemed to go on forever.