Chapter 301. My Birthday: Knowledge Test. (6/6)
I put the matters of the two scary women off to one side and began my class 6 knowledge test.
What should you do if there isn't enough time to avoid a small obstacle on the roadway?
That was the very first question and I immediately froze up and broke out into a sweat. Had I taken this test too easy?
The options were (A) Lean forward, (B) Hit the obstacle head on, (C) Apply the front brake, (D) Downshift.
To start off with a wrong answer would be a bit painful. It could lower my morale and focus. It’d be constantly at the back of my mind and bother me.
As such, I pressed the skip button. We were allowed to come back to the question if we skipped it. It’d come back around as the last question if I didn’t skip any other questions. It was a feature I hadn’t used on the first test because of how easy it was for me.
A motorcycle is not a good fit for you unless...
I breathed out a sigh of relief when I was given a much easier question. The answer was, you can stand with both feet on the ground when straddling the saddle. Seriously though, this was such blatant discrimination against vertically challenged people.
On a normal motorcycle, you would operate the clutch with… your left hand.
If your helmet has a crack in it, under what circumstances can you still use it? None.
On a dry, smooth, level road, your brakes must be capable of stopping your bike from 30 km/hr within… 9 meters.
At a minimum, your motorcycle boots should reach at least… over your ankle.
What is the choke on a motorcycle used for? Starting from cold.
You should always mount your motorcycle from… the left side.
Your rear license plate must be illuminated with what color of light? White.
Which of these is it compulsory to have on your instrument panel? Speedometer.
Where will you normally find the controls for your headlights on a motorcycle? On the left handlebar.
What is the minimum width for motorcycle handlebars? 53 cm.
As you ride, your feet should be on the footpegs and… level.
When you release the throttle of your motorcycle, it should… spring closed.
In your normal riding position, you should be… leaning slightly forward.
On a normal motorcycle, you operate the front brake using… your right hand.
Making a right turn from the right lane, what position should you be riding in? The right-hand tire track
In normal riding circumstances, you should try to stay… Near the center of your lane.
On a multilane roadway, you should take up a position where? In the tire track closest to the lane division line. Tire track just meant in line with the tires of the car in front of you. This was so you could have more room to maneuver out of the way should someone try to box you out or cut you off.
After I got to the twentieth question I ended up getting some wrong. The difficulty had increased. By the time I got to the thirtieth question, I’d gotten four of the questions incorrect altogether.
The last ten questions ended up being about stuff like driving while impaired, license suspensions, and criminal code-related matters. I hadn’t put much attention on studying these areas in the handbook because I never drank alcohol, did drugs, had my license suspended, or got in trouble with the law before. They were honestly things that would most likely never apply to me and if they did, I’d just look them up at that point. I wasn’t the type to do stupid shit like this.
As such, I struggled for the first time in a while on a test. These final questions were the determining factor whether I passed or not.
By the time I answered the thirty-ninth question, I’d gotten 4 in this section incorrect. I couldn’t afford to get the last question wrong.
And of course, the last question was the very first question I skipped.
My stomach turned in disgust when the question I put off at the start came back to bite me in the ass.
What would I do if I was in a situation where I couldn’t avoid an obstacle?
I closed my eyes and imagined myself on a motorcycle driving down a dark road at night. At the last moment, my headlights uncover an unknown obstacle in front of me and it’s too late to avoid it.
My eyes flash before my eyes as time slows down and I’m given four choices. If I choose incorrectly, I will die.
Would I lean forward in this situation? No, that sounds stupid, wouldn’t doing so make it more likely that I fly forward off of my motorcycle? Then, it wasn’t A.
Do I hit the obstacle head on? Doesn’t that sound stupid though? Well… what if it’s a glass bottle, would it be stupid then? If I applied the brakes in that situation instead, what would actually happen?
Is it possible that as the bottle caves in around the front wheel that it could be sent flying up at me and shoot glass shards into my body? In that case, slowing down might result in more broken glass puncturing my body from below. Thus, downshifting to a lower gear would also be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?
Downshifting to a lower gear would only increase my braking ability, my ability to slow down faster.
An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an opposing force, Newton’s first law.
When your acceleration is kept at zero there is no force being applied. If I add another force to the equation in the form of braking, it could lead to a really bad skid across the glass due to the sudden negative acceleration and the glass's low coefficient of friction.
The slower you pass over something sharp, the more time it has to puncture into what passes over it. However, the faster you travel over it, the greater the net force. If I looked at it from an impulse-momentum standpoint... no, that’d probably turn into a complex optimization problem as the contact point with the glass bottle, shape, and the force it’s experiencing changes with time. Who’s got time to try and solve that sort of chaotic nonsense?
There’s obviously an easier way to think about it than physics.
What if I make an analogy for it instead? For example, if I think of it as playing with fire. If it was fire, rather than slowing down and receiving worse burns, wouldn’t I just drive through it without slowing down to minimize the time I’m exposed to the high temperature? Then… the answer would be… (B), hit the obstacle head on, right?
The simulation in my head finally unpaused as I drove directly over the glass bottle and reopened my eyes.
I gulped nervously and slowly extended my arm out to select my answer. I was filled with anxiety. I hadn’t felt this sort of feeling from taking a test in almost two decades.
What if I was wrong and it wasn’t B? I’d only have to wait seven days to take it again and waste another measly $10, but the problem with that scenario was the seller. They said they wouldn’t sell their motorcycle to me if I didn’t have a class 6L license. That was because I had to ride it home on my own. Irene only had a class 5F license, so nobody else could ride it.
Damn it, it was such a good deal, I didn’t want to lose out on it because of this.
Those damn girls, they’d cursed me with their ungodly foreshadowing. Screw you foreshadowing, I won’t lose to something stereotypical like you.
Do I believe in my deduction, or do I go with a random guess?
By the time that thought entered my head, it was already too late. I didn’t have time to think. I was down to ten seconds and about to run out of time. With no other choice, I locked in B with my eyes shut and submitted my answer.
I didn’t bother to look at the screen to see whether I’d passed. Rather, I stood up and immediately headed to the counter.
When the woman I’d been dealing with finished assisting someone else I approached the counter.
“Tsk, you passed, huh. Just barely too.” She scoffed as soon as she looked up from her monitor and saw me.
When I heard her confirm I’d passed, I breathed out a long sigh of relief. Thankfully, I’d gotten that last question correct after all. From the looks of things, it seems her conversation with Rosa had left her in an awful mood.
“A pass is a pass.”
“Here, I already printed out your license.”
“Just one?”
“It’s good for both. You only get a single document. On it, it shows in the class stage field which licenses you have. So for you, right now it would be 5L and 6M.”
“I see. Thanks.” I’d never had more than a class 5 license so I didn’t actually know how it worked when you got another.
“You need to sign it.” She explained as she slid the temporary paper license over the counter.
“Oh, right.” I picked up a pen and signed the signature line as instructed.
“You’re set to go. All you need to do now is take the motorcycle training course.
“Great. I’ve really got to go. I’m scheduled to take it right after this.
“Well, good luck with that I guess.”
I was somewhat dumbfounded when I was wished the best of luck by her of all people.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“To wish me the best of luck, you’ve got to be feeling sick or something, right?”
“It’s called lip service and it’s part of the job. Just shut up and go already, I’ve got other people to assist.”
As she’d indicated, there were other people in the waiting area who’d shown up since we arrived. We’d gotten here as soon as they opened up in the morning. It had to be that early because of the training course that’d take all day.
Honestly, I was cutting it pretty close with work and all. But it couldn’t be helped.
Chapter 301. My Birthday: Knowledge Test. (6/6)
I put the matters of the two scary women off to one side and began my class 6 knowledge test.
What should you do if there isn't enough time to avoid a small obstacle on the roadway?
That was the very first question and I immediately froze up and broke out into a sweat. Had I taken this test too easy?
The options were (A) Lean forward, (B) Hit the obstacle head on, (C) Apply the front brake, (D) Downshift.
To start off with a wrong answer would be a bit painful. It could lower my morale and focus. It’d be constantly at the back of my mind and bother me.
As such, I pressed the skip button. We were allowed to come back to the question if we skipped it. It’d come back around as the last question if I didn’t skip any other questions. It was a feature I hadn’t used on the first test because of how easy it was for me.
A motorcycle is not a good fit for you unless...
I breathed out a sigh of relief when I was given a much easier question. The answer was, you can stand with both feet on the ground when straddling the saddle. Seriously though, this was such blatant discrimination against vertically challenged people.
On a normal motorcycle, you would operate the clutch with… your left hand.
If your helmet has a crack in it, under what circumstances can you still use it? None.
On a dry, smooth, level road, your brakes must be capable of stopping your bike from 30 km/hr within… 9 meters.
At a minimum, your motorcycle boots should reach at least… over your ankle.
What is the choke on a motorcycle used for? Starting from cold.
You should always mount your motorcycle from… the left side.
Your rear license plate must be illuminated with what color of light? White.
Which of these is it compulsory to have on your instrument panel? Speedometer.
Where will you normally find the controls for your headlights on a motorcycle? On the left handlebar.
What is the minimum width for motorcycle handlebars? 53 cm.
As you ride, your feet should be on the footpegs and… level.
When you release the throttle of your motorcycle, it should… spring closed.
In your normal riding position, you should be… leaning slightly forward.
On a normal motorcycle, you operate the front brake using… your right hand.
Making a right turn from the right lane, what position should you be riding in? The right-hand tire track
In normal riding circumstances, you should try to stay… Near the center of your lane.
On a multilane roadway, you should take up a position where? In the tire track closest to the lane division line. Tire track just meant in line with the tires of the car in front of you. This was so you could have more room to maneuver out of the way should someone try to box you out or cut you off.
After I got to the twentieth question I ended up getting some wrong. The difficulty had increased. By the time I got to the thirtieth question, I’d gotten four of the questions incorrect altogether.
The last ten questions ended up being about stuff like driving while impaired, license suspensions, and criminal code-related matters. I hadn’t put much attention on studying these areas in the handbook because I never drank alcohol, did drugs, had my license suspended, or got in trouble with the law before. They were honestly things that would most likely never apply to me and if they did, I’d just look them up at that point. I wasn’t the type to do stupid shit like this.
As such, I struggled for the first time in a while on a test. These final questions were the determining factor whether I passed or not.
By the time I answered the thirty-ninth question, I’d gotten 4 in this section incorrect. I couldn’t afford to get the last question wrong.
And of course, the last question was the very first question I skipped.
My stomach turned in disgust when the question I put off at the start came back to bite me in the ass.
What would I do if I was in a situation where I couldn’t avoid an obstacle?
I closed my eyes and imagined myself on a motorcycle driving down a dark road at night. At the last moment, my headlights uncover an unknown obstacle in front of me and it’s too late to avoid it.
My eyes flash before my eyes as time slows down and I’m given four choices. If I choose incorrectly, I will die.
Would I lean forward in this situation? No, that sounds stupid, wouldn’t doing so make it more likely that I fly forward off of my motorcycle? Then, it wasn’t A.
Do I hit the obstacle head on? Doesn’t that sound stupid though? Well… what if it’s a glass bottle, would it be stupid then? If I applied the brakes in that situation instead, what would actually happen?
Is it possible that as the bottle caves in around the front wheel that it could be sent flying up at me and shoot glass shards into my body? In that case, slowing down might result in more broken glass puncturing my body from below. Thus, downshifting to a lower gear would also be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?
Downshifting to a lower gear would only increase my braking ability, my ability to slow down faster.
An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an opposing force, Newton’s first law.
When your acceleration is kept at zero there is no force being applied. If I add another force to the equation in the form of braking, it could lead to a really bad skid across the glass due to the sudden negative acceleration and the glass's low coefficient of friction.
The slower you pass over something sharp, the more time it has to puncture into what passes over it. However, the faster you travel over it, the greater the net force. If I looked at it from an impulse-momentum standpoint... no, that’d probably turn into a complex optimization problem as the contact point with the glass bottle, shape, and the force it’s experiencing changes with time. Who’s got time to try and solve that sort of chaotic nonsense?
There’s obviously an easier way to think about it than physics.
What if I make an analogy for it instead? For example, if I think of it as playing with fire. If it was fire, rather than slowing down and receiving worse burns, wouldn’t I just drive through it without slowing down to minimize the time I’m exposed to the high temperature? Then… the answer would be… (B), hit the obstacle head on, right?
The simulation in my head finally unpaused as I drove directly over the glass bottle and reopened my eyes.
I gulped nervously and slowly extended my arm out to select my answer. I was filled with anxiety. I hadn’t felt this sort of feeling from taking a test in almost two decades.
What if I was wrong and it wasn’t B? I’d only have to wait seven days to take it again and waste another measly $10, but the problem with that scenario was the seller. They said they wouldn’t sell their motorcycle to me if I didn’t have a class 6L license. That was because I had to ride it home on my own. Irene only had a class 5F license, so nobody else could ride it.
Damn it, it was such a good deal, I didn’t want to lose out on it because of this.
Those damn girls, they’d cursed me with their ungodly foreshadowing. Screw you foreshadowing, I won’t lose to something stereotypical like you.
Do I believe in my deduction, or do I go with a random guess?
By the time that thought entered my head, it was already too late. I didn’t have time to think. I was down to ten seconds and about to run out of time. With no other choice, I locked in B with my eyes shut and submitted my answer.
I didn’t bother to look at the screen to see whether I’d passed. Rather, I stood up and immediately headed to the counter.
When the woman I’d been dealing with finished assisting someone else I approached the counter.
“Tsk, you passed, huh. Just barely too.” She scoffed as soon as she looked up from her monitor and saw me.
When I heard her confirm I’d passed, I breathed out a long sigh of relief. Thankfully, I’d gotten that last question correct after all. From the looks of things, it seems her conversation with Rosa had left her in an awful mood.
“A pass is a pass.”
“Here, I already printed out your license.”
“Just one?”
“It’s good for both. You only get a single document. On it, it shows in the class stage field which licenses you have. So for you, right now it would be 5L and 6M.”
“I see. Thanks.” I’d never had more than a class 5 license so I didn’t actually know how it worked when you got another.
“You need to sign it.” She explained as she slid the temporary paper license over the counter.
“Oh, right.” I picked up a pen and signed the signature line as instructed.
“You’re set to go. All you need to do now is take the motorcycle training course.
“Great. I’ve really got to go. I’m scheduled to take it right after this.
“Well, good luck with that I guess.”
I was somewhat dumbfounded when I was wished the best of luck by her of all people.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“To wish me the best of luck, you’ve got to be feeling sick or something, right?”
“It’s called lip service and it’s part of the job. Just shut up and go already, I’ve got other people to assist.”
As she’d indicated, there were other people in the waiting area who’d shown up since we arrived. We’d gotten here as soon as they opened up in the morning. It had to be that early because of the training course that’d take all day.
Honestly, I was cutting it pretty close with work and all. But it couldn’t be helped.
