LONDON–I am going to bust open a London urban legend: Americans don’t automatically fail their driving exam the first time they take it.

I will admit this was a scaremongering myth even I perpetuated before I took my exam, as I had heard from American friends and colleagues countless horror stories of examiners failing people because they hesitated when backing around a corner (which feels so illegal for American drivers who had it beaten into us during driver’s ed courses to never ever do that), or because they hadn’t checked their mirrors every 45 seconds in a counterclockwise manner. Read more