My P2 licence was about to expire, which is the kind of deadline I respect only because a computer somewhere will fine me if I don't. So I finally booked in for the full licence test I'd been putting off.
If you didn't grow up driving in Australia, the system is a whole saga. Computer test for your Learners, then 120 hours of driving next to a fully licensed adult who grips the door handle a lot, then a physical driving test, then your red P1 for a year, then your green P2 for two, then one last computer test before they finally hand you an unrestricted licence and let you loose. It is a trip.
I downloaded the full licence guidebook onto my iPad and studied it like a good little girl. Then I sat the exam absolutely certain I'd failed, because I tapped that it was safe to overtake some cyclists and immediately realised it very much was not. And then, somehow, I passed.
Relieved does not cover it.
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| Woohoo! |
I assumed passing the test was the hard part. I was wrong. Every stage of your licence comes with a plate you have to stick on your car, a yellow L, then a red P, then a green P, then blessed nothing. You can buy proper plate holders. Or you can do what I did and go for the cheap magnetic ones.
Big mistake. Do not do this.
My car is black. Our summers are not gentle. The magnetic P plates baked themselves flat onto the paintwork like they'd been welded there, front and back, and refused to come off.
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| Here's my cutie car "Zippy" with the P plates melted on. |
So if you have somehow found this post by googling how to get a melted P plate off your car, welcome, I have been exactly where you are, hairdryer in hand, quietly losing it.
Here is what did not work: me, alone, with a random assortment of chemicals from under the sink and a hairdryer, scraping away and making almost no progress while getting increasingly cranky at a piece of plastic.
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| Me incredibly failing at making any kind of progress |
Here is what actually worked, once I gave up and got someone handier than me involved. Soak a rag in eucalyptus oil, hold it over the plate so it really soaks in, then scrape it off with a thin spatula. It is slow, and the first plate tested my patience, but it came off. The second one was worse, and that is where the hairdryer finally earned its keep, softening the glue while we scraped.
It was bloody freezing the whole time. I supervised the first plate very seriously, then went inside for a cup of tea and let someone else take the win on the second one. No notes.
So there you go. Full licence, unmelted car, one lesson burned in permanently. Do not get magnetic plates.
> # end of file
> if you're out there right now scraping a plate off your bumper, godspeed.
> and please, just buy the clip-on holder.
> # signing off