He failed. For the fifth time. It should have been simple—even the most basically stupid of people could drive a car, and Sherlock Holmes was neither basic nor stupid.
Getting your license was a right of passage, or so everyone believed. But he lived in London, so he didn't need to drive, and so the simple piece of plastic was really quite pointless. But he was sick and tired of people insinuating that he was still a child because he couldn't drive a car. Absurd. Of course he could drive one, he just chose not to.
The instructor frowned as she told him he'd failed. His reasons for failing weren't a question of physical ability but rather a mental one. No matter how hard he tried, in his mind he always saw the way the engine worked—every piston and valve and combustion, gears meshing and unmeshing as the car shifted up—and it was distracting. More of his mind was focused on that than anything else, just out of pure need for his brain to be doing something.
Yes, he was awful when it came to the speed limit. He didn't see the point of one. If he could drive safely, and had a quick enough reaction time, he didn't see why he couldn't drive as quickly as he liked. The same was true of lane assignments. Why should he be forced into the slow lane because, for once, he was following the speed limit? He'd failed for not being steady in the lane! What did it matter? He was in the lane, why did it make any difference where he was within it? (Signalling he did see as important—he'd been in a wreck as a child because the other car had failed to signal.)
The woman handed him a paper, and he frowned. She then went to his parents, and could tell from any of a number of signs that she thought he should never be allowed to drive.