Instant Failure!

Now there is a phrase to haunt the careless nuclear power plant operator or maybe a parachutist imagining pulling his parachute harness release instead of his rip-cord. Whatever its application, I thought when I first heard the phrase “instant failure” it had a ringing finality to it. There could be no coming back from an “instant failure”. But not so in Singapore: In Singapore instant failure is a way of doing things. I have many times personally experienced instant failure and, now that I am just visiting Singapore, I am here to tell this tale.

I suppose if I had thought about it, I might have associated instant failure with a driving school. You know, the kind of failure we would associate with a flustered student driving the school car into an office showroom window. Or maybe “instant failure” would apply to a driving student caught whispering into a two way radio in his jacket breast pocket during the theory exam. I met the anguish of “instant failure” in the clutches of Comfort Driving School.

I am not sure where the name “Comfort Driving School” comes from. Getting motorcycle lessons in the 33 degree Celsius heat in Singapore, wasn’t particularly comfortable, nor were the long pants, gloves, helmet, elbow and knee pads we had to wear. Maybe it was intended that I take ‘comfort’ in the fact that I was being trained inside the most thorough motorcycle training regimes on this side of the milky way.

I didn’t take any comfort knowing that only a fraction of those who start the training actually persevere long enough to obtain a license. Maybe I was to take comfort from knowing, for all this effort, the biggest motorcycle I would be able to drive would be one with a less than 200 cc engine. But 200 CCs or 2000 CCs, there was no comfort knowing we are all still just sitting ducks for any of Singapore’s 15,000 geriatric taxis drivers. One person dies on a motorcycle every other day in Singapore. That’s certainly no comfort. One thing for sure, it was no comfort to know that at anytime, during anyone of my 12 examinations, the prospect of ‘instant failure’ was one false step away.

Here is how the how it works at the Comfort Driving School. It starts with riding theory, and, of course, a riding theory exam. The riding theory exam is passed by getting at least 45 of 50 multiple choice questions correct on at least one of your multiple attempts at the exam in the computer lab. Only get forty four questions correct? - Instant Failure!

Now I confess I didn’t make this easy for myself. To prepare for the theory exam, we were required to attend two theory lesson nights of about three hours each. The night of the first evening, after registration, the door was locked presumably to keep those in who had registered. But having been appraised of this beforehand, and having made previous business commitments, when the instructor turned his head, I slipped out the back of the room through the side door that I had unlocked in planning my escape. I ran out of the building and jumped into a waiting taxi and sped across town to attend my evening appointment. After the meeting, I jumped in another taxi and roared back to the school to slip back into my seat just before the sessions ended. You see, I had to return in order to get my student card stamped that I had been in attendance. I guess if you treat me like an adolescent, that’s how I will act. And you know, it was just as much fun as I remember it. On the second evening, to ward off what my friend had reported from the first session as a crushingly boring time, we brought in a very tall bottle of pre-mixed vodka and orange juice. It seemed to work. Although I am slightly ashamed of my behavior both nights – In retrospect it was preparation for what was to follow – the practical lessons and traffic police examinations.

After passing the theory test examinations, we could begin the onsite practical training – presented in 12 ‘easy’ lessons. Well, not so easy actually. Most students averaged about 3 to 4 attempts to “pass” through each of the 12 lesson exams, plus practice revisions, not to mention retraining if one were to fail the traffic police test at the end. I meet one stalwart soul who had been at it more than two years, and had failed the traffic police test five times! I didn’t think he wanted me to ask him how many lessons he had paid for. You see, you must pass each lesson in the subjective opinion of the instructor, or repeat it.

You have to admit this is a pretty good business model. Students can’t move on to the next lesson until the school says so. There are no individual private lessons allowed in Singapore and you can’t challenge the police road test. And you pay for each lesson, of course, and for each exam attempt, etc, etc. I paid for about 40 lessons. Now that would be a comfort to any driving school!

I suppose I shouldn’t complain, at least I wasn’t a motorcycle in the Comfort Driving School. As you can imagine, your lot as a motorcycle in a driving school, is not a happy one. After you have been thrashed around by the motorcycle trainees for 6 months or so, the final duty of a motorcycle before retirement at the Comfort Driving School is to expire in the first lesson fleet. One drill in the first lesson is driving one of these bikes, from very close range, into a large rubber tire mounted on a brick wall. This is our first opportunity to practice moving off, and I guess, stopping. Another drill is circling endlessly, and starting and stopping in unison without crashing into the guy in front. As you can imagine the sound of motorcycles falling over is fairly constant in the first lesson.

In lessons two, three and four, we were introduced to the driving site. Within the Comfort Driving School compound, there is a four or five acre driving site – sort like a giant version of a kid’s toy carpet with roads, stop signs, traffic lights and parking areas. It looks real enough until you notice there are only two colors of vehicle on the roads - a fleet of silver Toyota sedans and an army of blue 125cc Kawasaki motorcycles. And, you will notice, they are all moving, slowly, VERY slowly. I suppose it’s a good thing, but it is painfully slow for someone who has been driving for a long time. It’s like driving in molasses.

Now where was I?

Oh yes, “instant failure”

Within the site, there are 10 specific training stations designed for instant failure. There is the starting and stopping slope, the figure 8 course, the crank course, the emergency brake course and the slalom course. Finally, there is the greatest nemesis of them all - the “plank”. The “plank” is about four inches high, only a foot wide and about 30 feet long. Students ride and fall off the plank until they can stay on for its full length. After that, students must ride it at ultra slow speed, taking at least 6 seconds to traverse its length. In all of the training stations, touch a cone, touch the ground with your right foot, fall off the plank, be too fast, be too slow, look right first instead of looking left first, stop outside the line, fail to turn on your headlight -- instant failure! Instant failure means repeating the lesson, and that means waiting another 7 to 10 days for a lesson opening and making the sojourn back to the Comfort Driving School for another two hours in the baking sun. Lesson five is the on-site test, where students must run the course with no instant failures and less than 14 demerit points. Pass this test and students can to begin public road training. By lesson five, the sound of falling motorcycles is replaced by the anguished groans of “instant failure”.

It is at lesson five that many simply give up; it seems they cannot pass. After three practice sessions and three repeats of lesson five, I was ready to call it a day. The first time I failed from too many demerit points, primarily because I failed to enter the course when the flashing light started (nobody had told me what the flashing light was for). The second time, my right foot touched down in the crank course when I blew a shift into second gear – instant failure. The third time, I fell off the plank – instant failure. Finally, on my fourth try at the lesson test I passed.

By now, I had been in the process four months, made about 20 trips to the Comfort Driving Centre, and reached the point where I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was like a boot camp recruit – all resistance beaten out of me. In the end, I was determined to pass, even if for no better reason than just to prove to myself that I, in another life, was a competent human being. For thirty five years I have driven everything from motorcycles to tanker trucks. I am licensed to fly airplanes, but at the Singapore Comfort Driving School I was a driving nobody!

Finally, after another two more months of lessons and waiting, lessons and waiting, the big day arrived. Ninety students assembled at 7:15 am at the Comfort Driving School for the traffic police examination. Those that passed would be granted the dubious privilege of driving a motorbike on the public streets of Singapore. Those that failed, well, they got to continue the bondage for at least another 6 months or walk away from their considerable investment. All that stood between freedom and drudgery was a single instant failure: forget to turn on the headlight, the briefest brush of a cone, a missed shift, stopping behind the wrong line or falling off the damn plank and we would be toast. Is it any wonder so many Singaporeans say getting their drivers license is their greatest accomplishment?

The School sent us out on a practice round before the examination, first around the site, then our around the street test route. By 10:00 am we were numbered up in clusters of ten, assigned a bike from the pack at random and assembled like soldiers on the parade ground. Looking around, there were some pretty anxious faces hanging out in that hot morning sun, including my own.

Out of ninety students, only two expats were lined up to take the test, and we were numbered one and two. Number One, my friend, Chris, would lead us all around the test course, I was to be number two behind him. At last, the first ten were told to ‘start your engines’. With an indifferent wave, my expat compatriot and I we were the first two sent out onto the course.

I was like a puppy dog following Chris. We made our way to the stopping slope, the figure 8, the crank course and then to the dreaded plank, which neither of us fell from. After the emergency stop, we were still clear of the dreaded instant failure zones on site and clear to ride the open road test. But alas, all would not be well. At the first intersection, we waited behind a very large truck on a right turn. Chris started across the intersection, but stopped suddenly to avoid a car running the red light. I looked down – oh my gawd - Chris had put his foot down outside the turning pocket - Instant Failure!

Afterward the road test, we assembled with all 88 other students in a big classroom to wait the final verdict. One by one, the traffic police called people out of the room. Those called out were briefed, presumably, on why they failed. Long minutes later, the room was half empty. We sat. We sweated. Chris and I sat hoping. One of the instructors winked at us and gave us the high sign. We guessed either the traffic police couldn’t’ see Chris’ transgression behind the truck, or that Chris was forgiven for stopping outside the turning pocket as acceptable under the pressure of a car running a red light. We were never called out of the room, but couldn’t allow ourselves to believe that it was true we had passed until at last they closed the door and started showing the final films of our training – an hour of videos on all the ways we could die riding a bike on the streets of Singapore. Now they tell us!

I will never forget the Comfort Driving School. Its regimented approach to training, typical of the whole education system in Singapore, helped me understand my adult Singaporean coaching clients better. I learned humility, or at least what it might look like. And I thank my lucky stars every morning when I wake, that I will never, ever, again be forced to submit to the terror of instant failure!

Okay, I promise, next blog, back to sailing!

Cress