This Guy Finally Got His Driver’s License After Failing 32 Driving Tests in Over 25 Years
Unlike Olivia Rodrigo’s Driver’s License song, this guy took 25 years to get his license card.
Try and try until you succeed. Don’t stop believing.
That must be the mottos of Christian Whiteley-Mason who never quit – although he did at some point – on acquiring his driver’s license. That’s because it took him 33 attempts, 14 different instructors, and 85 lessons before he was able to pass his driving test.
“I can’t believe I’ve actually finally passed after all these years,” Christian said. “I’m still in shock!”
The care home manager got his first driving test in 1992 before the driving theory test was introduced. Test after test he failed, with people discouraging him along the way.
He said that he encountered an examiner at the Barnsley test center that he wished not to get, because ‘she was notoriously tough’ and she failed him every time.
“I had 56 lessons with my first instructor and eventually he told me to just give up as I would never pass,” the 42-year-old added.
After a series of failed driving tests, he quit on it for a while in 2003. By then he already had a record of 32 driving test failures.
He was helpless, saying, “I’d just had enough, I just thought I¹m never going to get it.”
When he was 40 he had some hope in him, decided to give it another shot, and took some lessons. That didn’t last long as he never took the test. He shared that he just got bored with it, barely seeing the point of it all.
But thanks to the demand of his job that requires him to travel regularly, he knew he had to earn that driver’s license.
“I had to either get taxis or rely on other people and it was costing me a fortune. So in January that was it, I just decided I was going to go for it.
“Everyone laughed at me and said I’d never do it, I’d get bored again. But I was absolutely determined I was going to show everyone,” he added.
He was successful. Maybe partly due to the fact that he got an examiner who is different from the one he had who kept on failing him. He passed the independent driving tests, the theory tests, and the hazard perception test, after over 25 years later he took his first test. All in all it cost him more than £10,000.
Source: Facebook
“I’m so proud of myself. It’s changed my life to be honest. I felt like I’d achieved everything I really wanted to achieve, this was the one thing left I had to do,” Christian remarked.
His husband Darren, who is going to celebrate with him their tenth wedding anniversary, once joked that Christian is an ‘accident waiting to happen.’
Now Christian can only that with a driver’s license at hand.
Source: Mirror UK
