At eighteen, I didn’t care about getting a driver’s license. In Prague or any big city, a tram pass and trains are all you need, and whenever we went somewhere, my boyfriend or friends would drive. But when you’re pushing thirty-two, you buy a house with your husband outside the city and start planning a family, not having a license becomes a huge ball and chain. You’re always dependent on someone giving you a ride. So last spring, I bit the bullet, picked a well-known local driving school, and told myself I’d get it done in three months.
Now it’s been a year and a half. I’ve sunk nearly fifty thousand crowns into courses, extra practice drives, and fees for repeated tests at the city office. And yesterday morning, I failed the practical driving test for the sixth time.
It’s not that I’m stupid or don’t know the theory. I aced the written tests on the first try with a perfect score. When I drive with my instructor Petr, I’m calm, shift gears smoothly, watch the signs, and can parallel park between two cars on the first attempt. By my thirtieth hour, Petr told me: “Jana, you drive completely normally, you don’t have a problem with the car, your problem is in your head.”
He was absolutely right. My problem starts the second a stranger in a reflective vest, carrying a clipboard and pen, gets into the back seat.
That’s when my brain completely shuts down. My heart jumps into my throat, my shoulders tense up, and my feet on the clutch and gas start shaking uncontrollably. My mind goes blank. Instead of reading the traffic, all I can focus on is every sigh from the examiner behind me and the clicking of his pen.
Yesterday’s sixth attempt was déjà vu. I’d had a stressful week at work and was just glad I made it to the test at all. It was raining outside and the asphalt was wet. The examiner wasn’t outright mean, but he was strict and uncompromising. The first ten minutes went well – smooth start, yielding, intersections in the city center. But then, turning left, I panicked because of a narrowed lane, got too close to the curb with the bike lane, and missed the clearance in the mirror. The examiner just grabbed the wheel, straightened the car, and said dryly: “Thank you, Mrs. Novakova, please stop at the next suitable place. Intervention in driving, the test is over.”
I sat in the car with my hands on the wheel, wishing I could sink into the ground. As he left, the examiner did say that otherwise I drive nicely, keep the speed, and check my mirrors, but the rules are strict. For me, it meant only one thing: more wasted money, more extra practice drives, and more unimaginable shame.
But the worst part isn’t failing behind the wheel. The worst part is coming home and facing everyone’s reactions.
If you don’t pass the first or second time, your family and coworkers comfort you: “It’s nothing, examiners are strict these days, you’ll get it next time.” But by the sixth attempt, all words of comfort disappear. People around you don’t know how to act. They start tiptoeing around you as if someone in your family had gotten seriously ill.
Yesterday after lunch, when I unlocked the apartment door, my husband was putting away groceries in the kitchen. One look at my red eyes and drooping coat was enough. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t ask, “So, how did it go?” There was just a silent, tired sigh and resignation in his eyes. He put the milk in the fridge and hugged me, but it was that awkward, pitying hug that hurts more than a slap. I knew what he was thinking: more thousands gone from the family budget, more weekends wasted on driving lessons, and the car in the driveway would keep sitting idle.
In the afternoon, my mom called. We usually talk every Friday. She talked about the garden, the weather, what she cooked for lunch. Not a word about driving school. Everyone around me knew I had the test that morning, but no one dared bring it up to avoid an awkward silence.
It’s such a humiliating feeling. You’re an adult, independent woman with a degree who manages projects worth hundreds of thousands at work, but in front of your own family you feel like a total failure because you can’t get through four intersections with a stranger in the back seat.
I sat in the kitchen that evening with cold food from a box, crying out of helplessness. In moments like that, you want to tear up all the papers, quit driving school, and tell yourself you’ll just take the bus for the rest of your life.
But giving up after all that money and stress would be the ultimate defeat. I took a deep breath, opened my planner, and messaged my instructor to book three more extra lessons. The problem isn’t with my feet or my eyes, it’s with the panic I have to overcome. And I will get that license – even if I have to go to the city office ten times. Because that feeling, when I finally come home and put the keys on the counter without everyone looking at the floor, will be so damn worth it.
