by Razed

Created on: July 07, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I learned to drive in the Army. In Singapore, young men are required to serve 2 years on active duty in either the Police Force, Civil Defense Force (i.e. Fire Brigade, Paramedics) or the Armed Forces. There is a big difference in how military and civilian driving instructors train and treat those learning to drive.

Unlike a civilian driving instructor, military driving instructors are more harsher and pile more pressure on the trainee to drive as in a military context, the driving conditions may not be ideal. This psychological and usually verbal pressure usually help builds confidence.

My training Vehicle was a Land Rover Defender 110. That was for Class 3 vehicles. I also trained on an Fiat Iveco 3 Ton Truck for conversion to Class 4 Vehicles.

Unlike driving a normal manual car, my land rover had stiff gears as the training vehicles are almost 20 years old, in addition the positioning of the reverse gears was different from those i have seen in normal cars.
The Iveco posed a different challenge. Some vehicles had gears that were prone to jumping back into neutral even though they have been engaged in gear 2.

Despite the aged feeling of the vehicles, the chance to practice driving off-road and in shallow waters was an unique experience as normal cars are not suited to such harsh terrains.

Once having completed driver course, you'll see young men aged around 19, driving large military vehicles at 50kph: the maximum permitted speed for military vehicles.

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