I'm 9 hours into learning to drive in NSW. That's nine 1-hour sessions at 70 dollars each, which means I've already dropped 630 bucks on this.

I want to pass the driving test on first try. Which means I need to actually understand what's happening on these roads instead of just hoping for the best. ## The Road Markings Are Chaos There are so many road markings. Lane dividers, bike lanes, bus lanes, zones you can't enter, zigzag, zebra, dragon's teeth, S-lines, zip line, zones that change depending on the time. It's genuinely ridiculous. You're trying to steer and remember which gear you're in, and the road is screaming different instructions at you with white lines. ## Speed Limits Make No Sense A 40kph zone sounds simple until you realize it only counts during school hours. 8:30-9:30am and 2:30-4pm. After that? 60kph. Same road. Same everything. Just different rules. WTF. Now I'm constantly doing mental math about time and whether a school is nearby. My brain is split between being a GPS and a clock and a paranoid passenger all at once. ## Painted "Islands" These aren't real raised islands. Just paint on the road. Center dividers. And you cannot drive on them. They sit in the middle separating opposing traffic directions. The weird part? You don't even need to indicate when you're avoiding them. They're just there. You navigate around them. No signal. Nothing. Just don't hit them. ## Blind Spot Checks Are Intense Not the mirror checks. The over-the-shoulder ones. Changing lanes? Check. Turning? Check. It's constant. My neck is getting a serious workout and my instructor probably thinks I have a spasm. ## Shared Traffic Lights So you pull up to a green light. You think you can go. But the cars on the right also have a green light. Now what? You move forward, let their cars pass, then you turn. It's like a dance nobody taught me the steps to. The light is green for multiple directions at once and everyone just has to figure it out. ## What I Always Forget Road engagement is apparently my biggest enemy. I get tunnel vision. I'm focused on the mechanics instead of actually engaging with what's happening around me. Speed management gets sloppy when I'm not thinking ahead. And those blind spot checks? I'll forget them when I'm concentrating too hard on something else. The independence piece is coming together, but only when I'm actually paying attention to the road instead of just executing moves. ## So Am I Better? IDK. I'm not hitting things. I'm thinking about the road before I drive on it. But NSW roads are designed to keep you humble. Just when you think you've got it, a new marking shows up that makes no sense, or a zone switches speeds on you, or you're navigating around another invisible island without signaling while a shared light tells you to go. Nine down. Probably one to three more sessions before the test. At 70 dollars a session, I'm hoping hard that road engagement clicks before then. My neck is ready. My wallet is definitely not.