this is a very real condition. my wife has a phd in experimental physics and can NOT remember which is which. if she looks at her hands she has a trick (the L your thumb and index fingers make is the correct orientation) but say “turn right!” to her and you might have well just made the muted trumped voice from the old peanuts cartoons
Anon takes a driving test
Submitted 2 months ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/8cdc7a62-7a09-46bf-b423-666b20ac1b60.png
Comments
JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 2 months ago
vithigar@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Does she remember whether she’s right or left handed? Just as a static fact about herself? I feel like it should be easy to reconcile an instruction like “turn right” by cross-referencing the knowledge of “I’m left handed” with “this is the hand I prefer to use”.
JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 2 months ago
truuuust me she’s tried everything you can think of. I find it surprising that she cant remember right as in correct as in dominant hand but she cannot. its honestly a little baffling
borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Maybe it’s not something where they remember they’re right or left handed based on that specific thing, but just that they prefer using the hand on that side.
That sounds weird. You wouldn’t need to understand the concept of left and right to know you have a dominant hand. You wouldn’t just innately know one hand is the dominant one and the other isn’t. If I told my cat that a treat was behind the door on the left he’d be like “wtf is left bruh”, but he almost always bats at shit with his right paw.
crozilla@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Can confirm. Had it my whole life. If you shout “turn right,” there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll get it right, but my brain is just guessing. I have to stop and think about it to know for sure. I would make a shit Rally driver…
theangryseal@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I have a problem with it a little bit. It aggravates the fuck out of me when I’m dealing with screws, especially if I’m screwing something in upside down or from around the back.
I literally hate myself. :p
JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I dont have this problem and thats tricky for me also
Eiri@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Try thinking of a clock. Most screws get tighter when turned clockwise. When time moves forward, your schedule gets tighter. Like the screw.
I’m not sure it’ll help, but since it’s a rotational reference for a rotational target, maybe it’ll help.
Personally I’m constantly drawing circles with my finger like a clock hand and then positioning my hand to face the screw while still drawing circles. It helps a lot.
zabby@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Yup, my husband is the same way. It makes for fun road trips when he’s the navigator 💀
echodot@feddit.uk 2 months ago
I told my partner to turn left an intersection and she couldn’t remember which was which, so she went straight ahead instead. Like the choice locked her up, and resulted in no action being taken at all. I assume we would have driven into a building if it had been a T-junction
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Tbh same, I don’t have to do the hand thing anymore though I just have to take a second to imagine me doing it, and that’s enough.
robocall@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I wrote L and R on my hands for the driving test
whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
the advice I got before driving was: your left hand is the one where the thumb is pointing to your right hand
and I still think about it
Mcduckdeluxe@reddthat.com 2 months ago
If you lay your hands flat with each thumb pointed at the other hand, your left hand will form an “L” shape. That’s probably what they meant to say.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 months ago
It’s perfectly okay to go the wrong way on the driving test in the UK
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 months ago
And also that you communicate that you’re aware what you’ve done, and how you’re going to continue.
I did it on mine, and said “I’ve just come off at the wrong exit, so I’m going to just continue along here.”
Examiner said it was OK, and just directed things back onto the route at the next junction.Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 months ago
I didn’t even say this lol. They just informed me after calmly and gave me new directions.
MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The guy who did my driving test (US) generally did not tell me which way to turn at interactions or Ts and would get angry if I hadn’t guessed correctly. Apparently, it was very obvious to him where I should be going, and he shouldn’t have had to tell me.
At the time, my area held the test in the city with the worst designed roads. Experienced drivers (such as me today) can easily take wrong turns there. It’s like each stretch of road between intersections was independently designed by different people who never communicated.
Noobnarski@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Same here in Germany, if you only do it once or twice safely you will still pass. I dont know if you would pass if you do it every time. I sometimes also confuse left and right, but it only happened in the lessons a few times, not in the test.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Should’ve tried to argue that turning right is safer so they’re just going to make three rights
i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Only if anon is in a country which drives on the right.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 months ago
No, they can still argue it, but it’d just be more stupid and wrong
slaacaa@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Two wrongs don’t make a rightThree rights do make left
Brickhead92@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sitting there muttering to himself something about non-euclidean geometry.
SsxChaos@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
[deleted]WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
That’s a hell of a spin you just put on failing the driving test 5 times.
IndiBrony@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s something I try to reassure my learners about: the examiner doesn’t care if you go in the wrong direction so long as what you did to get there was safe and legal.
Obviously, don’t take the piss and make up your own route, but taking a couple wrong turns will never fail you your test.