It’s taken 10 years and about 20 failed attempts – but Salendine Nook woman Surraya Begum has finally passed her driving test.
The 65-year-old has ripped up her L-plates after passing her test this month – much to the delight of her driving instructor Mian Azhar, who has been patience personified over the past six years teaching her to drive.
Mian, 63, a former taxi driver who runs Direction Driving School in Marsh, said Surraya had already been trying to pass her test with a number of other driving instructors for about four years when he agreed to help her. Some had even refused to teach her because they did not think she would ever be able to pass.
“I told her it would not be easy, but I would work with her,” he said. “I accepted the challenge! She was having two or three lessons a week to begin with. I asked her how much she had spent on driving lessons, but she can’t remember!”
Mian said: “Her big issues were lack of confidence, proper observation and planning and memorising the sequence of actions she needed to take.”
As well as learning to cope behind the wheel of the driving school’s Nissan Micra, Surraya was also hampered by her lack of English, which initially proved a barrier to her passing the theory test. “She had to work at it a lot,” said Mian.
Now Surraya has realised her ambition and has bought herself a Toyota Yaris to make short trips to the shops and for appointments.
Mian, who passed HIS driving test first time, said he also had a sense of achievement. “It seems unbelievable to me,” he said. “We’ve achieved something that seemed an impossibility. She was the oldest student I have ever had. Now she is driving smoothly and safely.
“There are people who think they will never pass the test. They go away, stop learning to drive and then come back to it 10 years later. I always tell them that I will help all I can, but in the end they have to work at it.”
