A brand new Volkswagen T-Roc arrives on the Postjesweg in Amsterdam. ‘Roadrunners Driving School’ is written on the roof sign. Driss Ballafkir, a cheerful man in a polo with a huge Hugo Boss logo, steps out with a wide arm gesture. “So, here we are, get in!”
We fold into the backseat. A blond, student-like man in his thirties stubs out his cigarette and sits in the driver’s seat. Siebren van der Laan has no idea who we are, but thinks it’s all fine. At the age of eighteen he already took a few lessons, this is his second driving lesson with Driss. “I’m going to put him to work first. Once we’re driving, we can chat,” says Driss. It’s noon, the bridge is just opening and a flood of cyclists are swarming around the teaching car.
We turn twice, but then Siebren gets it. Driss: “So, what do you want to know?” A T-rex lunchbox, a pear and an apple emerge from the dashboard. “In the driving school world, I think 80 percent have lunch this way.” In the drum four single brown slices of bread – jam, cheese, chocolate spread and chicken fillet – and two peaches. “I love fruit,” says Driss, while grinning widely as he takes another pear from the car door compartment.
“Teringlijer,” Siebren mutters when a white Tesla overtakes and crawls ahead just before a red traffic light. “Once you get into this work, you don’t think about food,” says Driss. He has been working as a driving instructor for 34 years, six students a day, six days a week. “He often goes home with a full lunch box. We crash over a speed bump at thirty kilometers per hour. “Thresholds in twos, please,” says Driss.
Driss looks at us through one of the five extra mirrors spread across the windshield of the training car. “Every moron wants to get his driver’s license. The bigger the moron, the more of a challenge for me.” Driss asks if Siebren is bothered by our conversation: “Oh no, keep talking.” Driss says that sometimes he cannot help people. “Just last week I had to put a seventeen-year-old girl out of the car. Too young and selfish to participate in traffic. She said to everything: ‘interesting’.”
Photos Simon Lenskens
On an industrial estate, Driss waves exuberantly to a colleague in a passing training car. “Now we’re going to stab,” he says. “I’ve never driven backwards,” says Siebren. Driss takes out his phone and shows a YouTube video of a stabbing car. Siebren goes for it. “You can touch the curb,” Driss whispers as the back of the car bounces off the curb into the air. “It’s okay, I know you can do it. One more time.” The third time it works. Driss: “So, now we’re going onto the highway.”
“Gas, gas, gas,” Driss shouts through the car while he gives Siebren three hard blows on the shoulder. We drive eighty when we try to get onto a crowded ring road. “When you merge, you are the conductor.” The four of us have been in the car for an hour and a half now. Siebren hasn’t said anything in a while. Driss hasn’t eaten anything yet.
Once off the highway, the dashboard finally opens. “Look, now we’re going to pick up the next one and I know that Sieb will manage on his own for a while,” says Driss as he takes a bite of the cheese sandwich. “I’m all sweaty, man,” says Siebren as he parks the car at the curb without any problems. 17-year-old Sam Vos gets in. Driss starts with his apple. The wet Siebren squeezes into the cramped backseat with us. He hopes to finish in a few weeks. “We will arrange that, friend,” says Driss.
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