In Imbree v. McNeilly, the High Court of Australia ruled that a learner driver is no longer to be held to the standard of a reasonable but unqualified (and inexperienced) driver in negligence claims. This overrules Cook v. Cook in this aspect and necessitates changes in tort textbooks which have very often cited Cook in direct contrast with the English position as embodied in Nettleship v. Weston. The contrast, which the textbooks have traditionally drawn, is used to illustrate the principle that the objective standard of care required by the law is one that relates to the type of activity in which the defendant is engaged, rather than the category of actor to which the defendant belongs. Thus, whereas the English Court of Appeal in Nettleship regarded that driving a motor vehicle requires the driver to be adjudged by the standard of a competent driver, the High Court of Australia in Cook was prepared to look to the individual characteristics of the defendant as evincing a "special relationship" with the plaintiff, to which effect was given by lowering the standard of care. This distinction has now been erased in Imbree, which concerned a claim by a passenger against an inexperienced driver of his car for injuries suffered. Imbree is certainly an important decision whose significance will surely find resonance in varied areas of tort law in time to come. It is the modest aim of this case note to show that Imbree, while a decision on a narrow point, in fact hints at a larger difficulty in the ascertainment of the standard of care in individual cases. It is in this context that it will be suggested that, when the time comes for Singapore.