Whenever Kate Beckinsale goes on The Tonight Show, Leno asks her if she has her driver’s license yet. The 34 year-old British actress told Leno in June, 2006 that she was intimidated driving in Los Angeles and that she was worried that if she took lessons that the instructor wouldn’t be able to help her by stopping the car. She said “I don’t know how it works here. In England they’ve got that system where the other people (instructor) have got a pedal so they can stop you, which they don’t have here.”

Beckinsale was on The Tonight Show again on Monday night and she told Jay that she didn’t pass even the written test to get her permit. It sounds like she went in there without studying and expected the test to be easy.

Kate said that she’s waiting until her 9 year daughter is old enough to drive her around and that after that she’ll get a motorized scooter like the old people use in the commercials, because they look so happy driving them around.

Here’s the clip:

You can’t blame her for not wanting to learn how to drive in LA. It must be scary for someone used to the cars on the other side of the street and people driving courteously. I remember when I was in England I was amazed at how long someone would sit and wait for another car to pass on a small road. In Berlin people drive about as aggressively as they do in America and I’m still kind of freaked out by the different traffic rules here. It’s always more convenient to drive but I still worry that I’m going to get in an accident.

I watched Beckinsale on Letterman and on The Late Late Show, where she joked with Craig Ferguson that she was going commando, but she was wearing pants so there wasn’t the possibility of an upskirt. She told Letterman a story about being scared by a possum in her garden and said that the Eliot Spitzer scandal wouldn’t have been a big deal in England unless there was a diaper involved. She’s witty and good-natured with a dry sense of humor and seems like the type of person who would be a great party host.

Beckinsale was promoting her film Snow Angels, which is an independent movie out in limited release about loss and love in a small town in Pennsylvania.

Here she is outside The Late Show. Those guys gawking at her are the best.

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