Driving

7 Days to Go Funny old day today, made one sill mistake that if in a test would have been a fail. Spent a fair bit of time today parking in bays, started off at ASDA, who despite being in the empty part of the car park told Kev he could not teach learners in Car Parks. Went down to Marine Drive and had people driving behind us while trying to park in the bays. Anyway seem to have got he parking in bays quite well, did one perfectly by accident, still need to remember to keep checking behind me. ...

8 Days till the test Got a lesson every day this week, so I am just going to do short summaries rather than write anything at length. Aced turning round in the road again, missed a check on my reverse park and went too close, then too wide then got it right on reverse round the corner. Also had a tendency to drive a little to far right on faster roads, must remember the two points on the windscreen the markings should pass through. Tomorrow is bay parking more reverse parking and reverse round a corner. ...

Passed the 60 hours of driving lessons milestone today, which probably equates to about 58 hours of actual driving. What with the first couple of lessons being driven to somewhere to practice, and the end of lessons going over Drivers Records from time to time. Turning round in the road was pretty much spot on, Kev wanted me to make a mistake so that he could ask me to do it again so we would be pointing the right way again. ...

Today was not my best lesson so far, generally my driving was quite poor, I seem to have forgotten some fairly important things like using the hand break and putting the clutch down. I did change my driving position within the car as I was in quite a tense position which dosn’t give me the best view in the world, not sure if that affected it but it may have done. I am still having problems reversing round corners, despite spending some time today reading back my old notes I couldn’t really do it today either, it is a bit to analog for my digital brain. Kev had another way which might help, and was certainly a way of getting the job done. ...

Moving towards my 60th hour of driving, and I am still enjoying it. Made a couple of silly mistakes today, the first (not the first mistake just the first silly one) was not taking a right turn where I should of. It was down to my perception of how the road went, I hadn’t anticipated that the road itself went straight on, I thought it went off to the left. Kev asked me to take the next right, and I missed it and went straight on. ...

Today was a day for gear changes and roundabouts, some dual carriageways and national speed limit single carriageways in the pitch black freezing cold. Kev was trying to get me more confident and less slightly dangerous on roundabouts which is good as I find them shockingly confusing, particularly if I need to do a gear change coming up to them. Lifehack has an article on making decisions under preasure, which I think probably covers the broad techniques I should be using to make sure I am better at roundabouts than I am at the moment. ...

First lesson in two weeks, for that matter I don’t get another lesson for two weeks either. I feel a little stuck with the driving to be honest, each lesson seems similar to the previous lesson, it is possibly a mix of the law of diminishing returns and fustration at doing the same thing over and over again. Took a look at the Burgess Hill Test Center the website still says no information available, and I can’t seem to select any times or dates on the “book a test” page on direct.gov. Never mind, hopefuly will be able to book a test at some point in 2009! ...

So today was the 48th hour of driving a car, we didn’t do anything new one emergency stop at the end after being chased round by a 4x4 for a bit, should have guessed that was going to happen after Kev had said he wanted me to do an emergency stop. Trying to perfect manoeuvres on difficult roads (read steep), was quite interesting trying to do a three point turn on a large hill. One thing that is slightly concerning me is reversing into parking spaces in supermarkets and the such. I am not sure why I would want to reverse into a parking space when I could just go in forwards and then put the shopping in the boot, it just seems like something that might be useful at some point. ...

Emergency Stops… …DON’T LIKE My head is buzzing after doing my first four emergency stops, it isn’t the emergency stops that I don’t like it is being in charge of a car after doing one, also having your mate shout “STOP” in your left ear, has a somewhat negative Pavlovian conditioning effect on the enjoyment of driving. So as with my earlier posts I am going to try and write down the procedure for doing an emergency stop, as with previous posts this is my memory of what to do, not official. Please take advise of a qualified driving instructor (like Kev) before trying this. ...

Today was another chance to go through my driver record, Kev got to tick off a few more of the boxes which is always a nice feeling. I am definitely suffering from a case of diminishing returns when it comes to driving, Kev and I had a discussion at the end of the lesson about trying to get more polish on my driving rather than learning any new skills. My driver record now looks like this: ...