Pulling into the test centre, I felt excitement bubbling up inside of me.

I’d just finished my first driving test and my three-point turn, mirror, signal, manoeuvre, and traffic awareness were so faultless, it would have impressed even a seasoned Formula 1 racer.

But then my assessor spoke.

‘You’ve failed,’ he deadpanned – all because I struggled with changing gears.

This happened eight years ago, on a beautiful summer morning in July 2017, and the pain didn’t end there as I’ve gone on to fail my manual driving test three more times.

That’s why I’m not surprised to hear that one in four driving tests in Great Britain are now being taken in automatic cars.

It has to be easier, and I’ve resolved to only learn automatic from now on.

When I started learning to drive at 32, everyone

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