Richard Hyatt: Test harder at desk than behind wheel

If you see me coming you’d best pull over. I am one of 36.9 million American drivers who can’t pass a written driving test.

Ed Bostic of Boomer 95.3 arranged for Buster Barber of the Barber Driving School to test six local people on Thursday morning, and none of us passed the written part.

We did better on the signage test, and only Coach Jason Gibson of the Columbus Lions parallel parked without a miscue.

There were 20 questions on the rules exam, and the average score was 55. I was well below the class average, but I must point out that I don’t test well early in the morning, particularly on Thursdays, and it has been 51 years since I last took a driving test.

Bostic couldn’t say bad things on the air about my score because we both made a 40 on the rules section.

He made me promise not to study the manual, but I believe he studied. There is no way a DJ should score as high as a newspaper columnist.

We are not alone in our humiliation. A recent survey conducted by GMAC Insurance said 36.9 million people would fail if they had to be tested today. It also concludes that one in five people are unfit drivers.

(We’ll never know how Taylor Barnhill of WTVM-TV would have scored. Management made her bail out, fearing the station would be embarrassed if she failed.)

After taking Barber’s test I understand the GMAC projections. We get behind the wheel every day and we drive on instinct instead of by the book.

Here are a few sample test questions:

How far in advance must you give a signal before turning?

What are the required documents you must have at all times while driving?

When following a car at night, you should dim your headlights within how many feet?

You can make a left turn on red -- True or False?

All passengers in a vehicle are required to buckle up -- True or False?

They sound simple, I know, but before you laugh at my score, take a sample test yourself at www.gmacinsurance.com. Then you can laugh.

According to the survey, Alabama drivers score higher on tests than drivers in Georgia.

On average, Alabama’s score is 77.2 compared to Georgia’s 75.6. The best drivers are in Kansas and the worst in Washington, D.C.

Passing Barber’s test would not necessarily make me a better driver but it would help.

Refreshing our memory on braking in the rain, what the Move Over Law requires and the shapes of road signs would make us safer.

My scores were so bad that I’m afraid the state is going to pull my license to curse other drivers and, worse yet, drivers from Alabama now have the right to honk their horn at me.

This story was originally published June 24, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Test harder at desk than behind wheel."