Warning To Pedestrians in South Yorkshire: Get Off The Road

Don't follow this one too closely

After 33 attempts, 14 different instructors, 85 lessons and $12,000 in taxi fares over 25 years, Christian Whiteley-Mason of South Yorkshire, England finally passed his driving test.

"I can't believe I've actually finally passed after all these years," said the mechanically misfortuned motorist. "I'm still in shock!"  The 42-year-old home care manager first took a drivers test in 1992 and quickly racked up a succession of test fails.  Even his husband Darren, thought he'd never pass, joking with him 'You're an accident waiting to happen.'

"There was this one examiner at the Barnsley test center who I used to pray I didn't get. She was notoriously tough and she failed me every time.  I had 56 lessons with my first instructor and eventually he told me to just give up as I would never pass," admitted the tortured Tyke.

By 2003, after Christian had failed his test a monumental 32 times, he admitted defeat and finally gave up on his dream of driving and decided it wasn't for him.  "I'd just had enough, I just thought I¹m never going to get it.," said Christian.

Even when he turned 40 and decided to give it another go, he had a few additional lessons but didn't stick with it, and never got as far as taking his test.  "I just got bored with it," Christian admitted. "I couldn't see the point."

But by his tenth wedding anniversary, Christian had increasingly been required to travel for work and was finding it more difficult to get by without being able to drive. "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."

Christian recounted the days leading up to the fateful day:  "There must be a God because I prayed every night that I wouldn't get that same examiner who'd kept failing me, and [the day of the test] I didn't."  Not only did he pass on his first attempt, but he only got marked down for three minor errors.  Admittedly, Christian increased his chances by taking the automatic-only driving test. 

"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.  My motto was always been don¹t stop believing,"  Christian told reporters.  He celebrated the occasion by buying a second hand smart car, which he named Percy.