Driving in the Dark

After being reprimanded by a colleague (Patrick) for my inconsistent blogging schedule I have been pondering what I can say that will offer and insight into the world of learner drivers.

Recently my sporadic lessons have been less of an issue as I have started to remember the basics of clutch control and looking in mirrors in order to avoid accidently killing passing cyclists. The drive is smoother but still feels ‘learnerish’ with errors creeping in when I come across new and unusual hazards, distractions and displays of idiocy from fellow road-users.

I was beginning to feel more confident that I would be able to pass early in the new year, but then a new adversary loomed its way into my life. Darkness.

Driving in the dark, I have discovered, offers a whole new perspective on the skill. And as I had only just got to grips with the perspective that involved daylight and not being occasionally blinded by headlights this has come as an unwelcome surprise.

On top of that, my first night-time lesson also involved a considerable amount of rain, further throwing off my depth perception and stopping distances and totally washing away the tentative feeling of happiness I had started to develop behind the wheel.

I found myself on a bit of a go-slow. Being over cautious about the fact that I couldn’t see properly the things I had come to rely on to judge that my road positioning was correct. While I was being over-cautious as a reaction to the changing environment, something I found more worrying is the lack of care taken by other drivers.

While I can fully appreciate the frustration of being stuck behind a learner going 25mph, surely burning through the darkness at 50 or 60 is a more deadly sin.

In a bid to banish my fears of speed, Steve’s solution was to take me onto the bypass and watch as I reluctantly followed the flow of traffic, inching the accelerator downwards.

Yes, I think a terror induced heart attack is definitely the way forward.

Top Gear*

Up until a few days ago, fifth gear was an exciting and elusive concept. And a TV programme.

During the first attempt at hitting it fifth remained elusive as the gear box made the crunchy noise it hadn’t uttered since my earliest attempts at grasping the concept of clutch control.

However, once the idea of banging it into neutral and then making the change up filtered into my mind I began to enjoy the feeling of speed as I cranked up the miles per hour.

What the increased speed really showed me is that my handling is fair improved from the first few lessons, there was no listing to the left and no fear that I was too far over when oncoming traffic approached. I knew that I was where I was meant to be on the road.

Although I seem to have hit a bit of a plateau in recent weeks as far as significant improvement is concerned – a problem not helped by regular ten day gaps between drives – I have started to iron out a few minor kinks and that is starting to make the drive smoother and the panicking less apparent.

I’m hoping to find time before Christmas to fit in a lesson a day for a fortnight so that I can build on my positives and eradicate the negatives with a prolonged period of driving.

I’m also hoping to persuade a willing soul that they should take me up to Metheringham airfield during from time to time and let me practice – any takers?

*without the anonymity issues

Weighing it up

So first of all – apologies for the delay.

There were no lessons for about three weeks and since they picked up again I have basically been struggling to find time to breathe, let along blog.

My most recent foray into the world of motoring is to learn about parallel parking, which is easier than I have been led to believe.

That is potentially because you don’t have to do it between two cars during the test and instead simply drive next to one and then reverse park behind it. I imagine that someone with my limited spatial awareness would struggle to actually park in this way if there was a third vehicle involved.

I have recently been thinking about positives and negatives as far as my driving is concerned. The positives are as follows – while a three week gap in the past would have resulted in a disaster movie-style lesson involving near death experiences, broken legs and CGI explosions (all in 3D at no extra charge) my first lesson back after the break was more a pootle around the city in which I didn’t stall, only got confused once and managed to navigate the by pass with a minimum of screaming.

The negatives are that I still occasionally mess up stopping distances and haven’t really grasped the concept of gearing down before the engine starts doing that weird juddery thing and I have to bang it into first before I stall. The key to this, I think, is consistency and confidence. Consistency is basically out of my hands.

Short of taking two weeks off work and driving every day there is little I can do about the working hours, over running meetings and sporadic bouts of breaking news that have stopped me getting to lessons in the past.

As far as confidence goes – we can but wait and see, I’m not exactly known for my shy and retiring nature but so far this seems to be the exception to my casual assumption that everything will be OK.

STOP! (Dooo do da do etc)

Since I started driving I’ve had a problem with braking. I tend to over break resulting in a jarring stop or go too far the other way and end up in compromising positions at junctions.

So the idea of an emergency stop wasn’t exactly filling me with glee.

As I started my driving lesson the rain was bucketing from the sky which led to a quick lesson in how to use the windscreen wipers before we set off.

The flash monsoon was no bar to the emergency stop lesson as I was told I’d have to do it in the rain at some point so I may as well get it over with.

On the drive to my impending whiplash, I was pretty pleased to note that my ability to use the clutch hadn’t evaporated overnight, and I was still able to avoid the mechanical clunking of previous lessons that indicated I was slowly but surely destroying the gear box.

By the time we got to the wide, quiet streets necessary for practicing the stop the skies had cleared but the surface was shiny and this led to a bit of a safety chat on stopping distances – further compounding my feelings that people who drive so close behind you that you can see the whites of their cold, dead eyes are gits. Or morons. Or both.

Anyway, on to the stop. They are awesome. I love them and the fact that I can actually do something first time. Whooooo.

I think that it is mainly down to the fact that I have fairly good reaction times, which helps with the whole ‘emergency’ part of it.

Admittedly, they are pretty easy to master and the fact that the car has ABS makes it basically impossible to do them wrong but still. Whoooooo!

Overall I feel like I am finally on the up and up. *Watch this space for some kind of comedy-filled disaster blog next week*

No Shirt, No Service

This was going to be headed ‘Clutch control missing – presumed gone’ but rather wonderfully on my last lesson my clutch control was a-okay.

I didn’t stall, the gears didn’t clunk, I even negotiated nose to tail traffic for a considerable stretch AND traffic on a roundabout without killing, maiming or swearing.

Ok, there was a bit of swearing.

So instead I’m going to dwell on something that has been interesting me for a while – which is why some people are allowed to drive.

This does not apply to the majority. Objectively I can appreciate that 90 percent of road users are reasonable individuals who might occasionally have a bad day, lose concentration or get frustrated. Which is a completely human and understandable thing to do.

I also appreciate that the rules I am being taught are rules to help me pass, not what I will do once I have been driving for years. Things like putting the handbrake on every time I stop will probably go out of the window as soon as I give up my green card and get a pink one.

However, there are a minority of people that make me think regular refresher tests, and some form of common sense exam, should probably be implemented before anyone is allowed on the road in any vehicle.

I’m largely talking about the type of driver that has, in the recent sunny weather, taken to driving shirtless. They normally wear baseball caps too, and have ear-rings. They make me nervous on the road, they make me nervous when I’m a pedestrian and sometimes they make me nervous when they are nowhere near a car.

Surely good judgement is essential in driving?

I don’t mean intelligence. I know some incredibly intelligent people that should never be allowed to drive because I have witnessed them do things like forget to tie their shoelaces or meander slowly down the street looking at clouds.

Before being given permission to drive a car, some kind of basic thinking skills about why it is a bad idea to drive like a maniac around a tight corner in a one way street is a Bad Idea.

It irks me that people who make such poor judgements and who don’t seem to care about their own safety are allowed behind a wheel of anything, ever.

Magic Roundabouts

When I was little there was a mini roundabout at the top of my Grandma’s street. You could only get on to it from one road so it was basically just a turning circle.

 When it was empty (as it normally was) my dad would drive round it the wrong way and we’d all sing the Magic Roundabout theme tune from the back sheet. Happy days.

Actual roundabouts, however, awaken less rose-tinted emotions in me. For my first few lessons staying in lane while going straight was a bit of an issue so the idea of doing this while having to drive in a circle took the same amount of concentration as telekinesis (I imagine.)

My spatial awareness isn’t great (insert clichéd joke involving the words 6 inches here) and this combined with the fact that cars keep appearing, disappearing and changing their minds means I’m never 100% sure I’m in the correctlane. Which, by the way, are imaginary because there are no markings – which doesn’t help in the least.

In order to combat this apparent inability to be able to work out where my car is meant to be when moving clockwise Steve took my on a lesson full of roundabouts and the technique of bombarding me with the bloody things seemed to pay dividends eventually.

Until he asked me to turn right off one, at which point I nearly destroyed a hubcap by scrapping it along the edge of the island, On the other hand, rather I do that then drive too far the other way and nearly destroy Steve by smashing into another car.

Another problem I encountered during my circular driving was the fact that a lot of people randomly move between the unmarked lanes on a whim.

Which puts me in mind of my dad yet again – specifically some words of wisdom he offered me before I ever got behind the wheel.

“When you’re driving, treat everyone you see like an idiot – even if it is me.”

P.S

Hi Dad!

ARGH – that is all

Right, forget the moment of enlightenment I chatted about a few weeks ago, I’d be happy if the moments of mind-numbing ineptitude I’m currently experiencing stopped happening.

 I’m not sure what happened, there was another enforced break due to work and home-based doom but last time that didn’t result in a lesson so bad the only way of making myself feel better was fish and chips. But after my last lesson a serious case of comfort eating was required.

 Stalling, forgetfulness and the occasional moment of blind panic all contributed to the disastrous day, one that I hope to forget in the near future.

 If I don’t manage to rectify the situation tonight I will be dangerously close to saying sod it and resigning myself to being one of life’s passengers.

So it looks like the light at the end of the tunnel was, in fact, some on coming traffic designed to make me panic and not a joyous epiphany-vehicle filled with highway code knowledge, a driving licence and ice cream.

 Why ice cream? Because it makes me happy.

 P.S. If you want to learn to drive and are Lincoln-based then message me – I have trial vouchers.

A helpful break

 I am aware it has been a while since I blogged about driving. There is a reason for that. Namely the fact that it has been a while since I drove anywhere.

The constant need to balance work and lessons took its toll over the last few weeks as meetings over-ran, court cases were delayed and my own impending exams took priority over getting behind the wheel.

So when I finally managed to squeeze in a lesson last week, I took to the driving seat with a certain amount of trepidation. I was fairly convinced the lesson would be an unmitigated disaster and that I would have forgotten everything of use, interest or importance Steve had ever told me.

For some reason, however, it was one of the best lessons so far. And not only because we just drove around and I didn’t have to do any reversing round things while trying to avoid reversing over things. My clutch control, a must in Lincoln as I discovered the first time I was caught by the cursed level crossing, seems much improved. I also didn’t nearly kill us by accidentally changing lanes at a roundabout, which was nice.

Annoyingly, I stalled right at the end ruining my first potential clean sheet since my first lesson, where I was too terrified to allow engine failure.

I’m not sure why the rest did me good, maybe I was dreaming about driving during the break or maybe I’m just thinking far more carefully about what my feet are doing.

Either way, I truly hope it is a sign of things to come.

Manoeuvrability

Apparently there is more to driving than being able to change gear without creating an angry growl from the engine and remembering not to list to the left when checking mirrors.

According to Steve, and the rest of the known world, I need to learn about these things called manoeuvres which largely involve being in reverse and trying not to hit parked cars.

I can see the point of most of the things I’m going to be covering over the next few weeks. I’ve already done a three point turn a couple of times and it seems to be quite a useful skill to have, especially as my sense of direction means I will undoubtedly be travelling the wrong way more often than not.

The ability to park without hitting things either side of you also seems like a good thing so I fully expect to embrace that when I eventually get round to it. One thing I don’t understand, however, is when I will need to reverse around a corner.

Having been a passenger for all my life (in most elements of life, in fact) I can never recall a driver having to reverse around a corner for any reason.

It is, of course, entirely possible that I am missing something really obvious and this is an essential skill, the point of which has somehow eluded me.

If this is the case, please share it with me so I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time for the sake of jumping through yet another driving hoop.

Elusive Enlightenment

Apparently at some point I will get into a car, the penny will drop and I will be able to drive like a dream.

I remain unconvinced that this is true.

The current pattern is me having a half-way decent lesson, in which I don’t stall or nearly kill us, followed a few days later by an hour-long series of disasters that wouldn’t be out of place in a Mr Bean series.

Everyone who tells me about this mythical moment of enlightenment smiles knowingly when I say this and repeats the fact that it will all come together.

If this is true, my question is when? I have limited funds to get me through this motoring mission. What if the money runs out before this karmic moment of realisation? Will I forever be doomed to saving, learning and having to stop before the penny drops?

I really hope not.

Now I have had a few lessons in which I actually feel like a driver I want to be able to feel like that every time I sit in a car.

I enjoy the experience more as time goes on.

I still don’t like other people though. I’m guessing that will never change.