So television is killing print, eh? So you thought. Trust us, video never managed to quite kill radio and we’ll make sure that television co-exists with the print media. And as they say, you can’t take a television to the loo, can you? Maybe we were a bit bored with those never-ending comparison tests and competing with other motoring mags for new car scoops. Maybe we just ran out of ideas. Whatever the case may be, we came up with this crazy idea of doing what the AXNs of this world would have been happy doing. In print, though.
Take four individuals who have never, ever driven an automobile, teach them to drive in ten minutes, and, hold your breath now, make them test drive a car on a performance evaluation track. Essentially, a stunt that graduate people from being mere pedestrians to ace road testers in 20 minutes flat. Dear readers, Motoring presents ‘Extreme Learners,’ a fresh chapter in motoring journalism in India. The idea was to find exactly how easy or difficult it is to learn driving a modern day automobile, with the help of an extreme crash course, in controlled conditions, of course . We chose a road that was not yet commissioned for use and took the additional precaution of cordoning it off Just in case.
To begin with, we needed a car – and since no self-respecting car maker would want their automobile to be the tool for this exercise, we decided not to tell Fiat India we would be using their long term Palio 1.2 that was with us at the time. Sorry, Fiat.
Bijoy, our editor, agreed to play driving instructor for the day. And we don’t think he quite knew what he was getting into. Finding four individuals who harboured dreams of not just driving, but ‘test driving’ cars was the easy bit – we had far too many contenders and had to almost rudely say no to some. Of the four, three contenders came from our parent newspaper office. Sameer, Prakash and Pallavi represent the young brigade in Business Standard’’s Mumbai office and we were really surprised to find they had never been behind the wheel of a car. The fourth contender, Andrea, a second-year degree student from Xavier’s College, was coaxed into the event by Joshua, our intern. Most people who heard about the idea thought it was sheer lunacy and were confident that learning to drive in ten minutes was near impossible. Which convinced us that we had a story on hand.
The session was divided into three parts – a crash course, a road test and finally, an auto quiz. The first involved ten minutes of teaching to drive, the second an effort by the pupil at road testing the car, and the third, a set of spot questions meant to probe the contestant’s knowledge about things automotive. All four contestants started the session with a score of 100 points each. To find the ‘best natural driver’ of them all, the scoring pattern was kept simple – mistakes during the road test would cost points from the tally, while correct answers to the auto quiz earned points. May the best learner win!
Crash course
Pallavi was the first to get behind the wheel, actually surprised that Bijoy was asking her to take the wheel straightaway. He murmured something like ‘only ten minutes, make the maximum out of it.’ At 5’7”, she needed to adjust the seat and spent a whole minute getting comfortable behind the wheel, proclaiming that she knew the ‘ABC thing about pedals.’ Meanwhile, Sameer seemed instantly comfortable with the car, while Andrea took her own sweet time and a bit of help from Joshua for getting there. Pallavi learnt to check for the neutral by yanking at the gear lever, and the next moment was asked to fire up the Palio motor. She then stalled the motor immediately as she tried to release the clutch for first gear. Sameer started off fine, as if he had been doing this all his life (were you cheating, Sameer?), while it took all of three attempts to see Andrea rolling off. Prakash was a bit apprehensive at first, but he mastered the controls within minutes and took the U-turn at the far end of the circuit like a pro, which impressed Bijoy a great deal.
The first lap around our PET course was handled in first gear, with Bijoy having to step in with constant steering corrections. ‘When I tell you to let go, just leave all those controls,’ was his only strict order. And while on the move, Pallavi managed to get a feel for the accelerator pedal, while a nervous Andrea took her hands off the steering wheel and her feet off the pedals at least once. She was all too ready to get out of the car the moment it came to a halt. ‘Can I remove my slippers?,’ was the only desperate plea from Pallavi. She just had to get a hang of keeping the car going straight but was otherwise doing fine by the end of the first lap.
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