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My Grandmother applied for a driving license and got one through the post - no driving test

My Mum took her test on an automatic but got a general license to drive any car

I took an automatic test and a separate manual one (motor cycle one too)

My daughter took a theory test as well as the practical one

I note in the news this morning that learners may now - with a professional instructor and dual control car - learn motorway driving. And I wonder if by the time my granddaughter is learning to drive if this motorway experiecne will be a mandatory element, with only qualified driving instructors being able to teach in specially adapted cars.

Other entitlements are interesting and probably confusing as well.

Trailers depending on when you passed you can tow different sizes. I Was comparing with friends of different pass dates, only last week as we were camping on a site that also has an on-site caravan dealer, so naturally curiosity kicked in and we looked round the caravans for sale.

Mine allows me to tow a trailer up the equivalent weight of the tow car, but not exceeding a combined 3.5T

Another friend who passed a few years after me can only tow up to a maximum 750kg

And the other friend who passed most recently can’t tow anything!

I believe older licence holders can tow with even less restrictions.

Add to that:

Various restrictions abroad.

Some car holders (Category B) can ride a moped with 'L' plates without doing Compulsory Basic Training (CBT).

Grandfather rights regarding Goods Vehicles and Minibuses (Categories C1 & D1).

Regarding the last one, upon reaching 70 those who have grandfather rights must forfeit C1 & D1 entitlement or pass a medical. If they then pass the medical I'm not sure whether they would then have to pass a C1/D1 test to have that entitlement(s) restored.

Motorhomes frequently fall into the C1 category. So there will be no "youngsters" driving these unless they pass the required test.

#MeToo. The pictures on the back of my licence make it look like I can drive a train of up to 3 carriages, despite having had only two official driving lessons. (I learned the quick way. Sorry.)

It took my children around 30 hours each to learn to drive. But after only around twelve hours, my instructor gave me the keys to the aeroplane and said "See if you can do it on your own."

If I am lucky enough to acquire a grand-daughter, I'm pretty confident that she'll just take out a mobility subscription for whatever is modish at the time, and ride whatever turns up. I suspect (and I'm looking 35 years down the road, as it were) that the ability to drive a car then will be about as common as the ability to drive a steam locomotive is now.

I've got one, aged 4, and I reckon she will learn to drive, possibly in an electric car. But I am not in favour of driverless cars. I think we should start slowly, with riderless motorcycles.

that's not a bad idea at that ,but I wonder what it would do for the organ donor scheme!..

Back in 1974 some school friends and I went to Southern Ireland for a holiday. We were told that the Republic had only just abandoned a system whereby to get a driving licence all you needed to do was go to a Post Office and pay a fee (50p/10 shillings if I recall correctly) - even if you were totally blind!

I spent some very happy times in Eire, and hope to spend more soon. On my first visit as an adult, to Wexford, I noticed that some road signs were in kilometres, some in miles, and some just offered a number. When I asked how to interpret them, a wise local told me it wasn't important, as none of them were remotely accurate anyway. Just ask, and if they say "About a mile" be prepared for a couple of hours' walk.

The one that sticks in my mind is when asking for directions,you get the reply
If I was going there I wouldn't be starting from here !.

Remember seeing the sign that  everyone saw on leaving Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leery). It had posts to the South East and West all in different sizes and colours, some official, some unofficial, some in miles , some in km, and there in capital letters at the very top was ALL TRAFFIC !

A few miles miles down the road, coming up to a junction, I saw an inverted triangle with the word YIELD. I'm afraid I just gave way to hysterical laughing. Had vision of a knight in shining armour complete with horse and lance.

A few days later, walked into a branch of Allied Irish, and noted the frosted glass and mahogany panelling, and above a desk was a sign marked 'Lodgements'. I had to ask what it was !

Archaic English is very much alive in the Irish Republic !

March 18th 1964 apparently. I think it was 1935 in UK. https://www.independent.ie/life/motoring/car-talk/why-roads-are-safer-after-50-years-of-the-driving-test-30062291.html

My father, like many of his generation, was taught to drive by the army. In his case (he was an RA signaller) that meant a motorbike and then a lorry (Bedford 4x4, I guess). I don't think he needed a civilian licence when driving for the army, but was entitled to one based on his training (though I think driving tests were stopped during the war anyway).

His first licence (issued in Chelmsord) for 1940-41 was marked "all groups except group II" - group II being trolley vehicles. That's a bit odd, since a lot of drivers got "all groups" by default without needing a trolleybus test! Even then, HGV and PSA drivers needed an extra licence. Dad then paid his 5/- in Beverley for 1941-42, but didn't renew again until 1945 in Kingston. He was busy doing other things, mainly in India and Burma, in between.

After multiple one-year and then three-year extensions, his 1973 one had no expiry date (the age limit I think came in later). That one still covered groups A-L, thus including G (road roller) and L (track laying vehicle steered by its tracks).

There's a history of the driving licence here (http://www.metadyne.co.uk/DL.html), which shows examples of how it has changed.

Belgium didn't have a compulsory car driving test until 1977.

That explains my experience on the motorway there, then.

But Belgian cars did have red lettering on their number plates, to make it easier to avoid them.

(Examples here (http://www.licenseplatemania.com/index.html), if you like that sort of thing.)

Delighted to see that they added license plates from Ghana to the website last month - not sure where I would have found out about them otherwise (on second thoughts, not sure why I want to know).