Our Cars: Charlotte Cobbs
5 December 2011: Around that corner
Last lesson, Vaughan set me some homework to practice my manoeuvres. Great! Just what I want to do…
I may not want to do it but it’s something I need to do in order to pass my test. So, who did the job fall to this weekend? My (sometimes) patient Dad.
I drove through the roads I normally do with Vaughan to find a quiet place to practice. I managed to do a “good” turn in the road, according to my new ‘driving instructor’ (or so he likes to think of himself!), in the process. But I knew that. I’m confident doing that maneuver. After a little while, there it was - the dreaded T-junction that I was reverse around the corner into.
The first two times I tried to do it with Dad’s guidance. If anyone else had heard him, they’d have thought we were in a Chucklevision episode - “A little towards me, now towards you”. It went on like this both times with me getting around the corner - only to hit the curb afterwards.
My problem was that I was scared of hitting the curb when I got to the corner - not once I’d got around it. So Dad and I swapped seats and he showed me what to do. He crawled the car along the curb, using just the clutch, which was slower than I’d been going because I know my car and I stall if I only use the clutch.
As Dad approached the corner, he asked me to look where the corner was in my wing mirror so I did and he said: “Can you see the junction disappearing yet?”
“Not yet ... Now I can”
“So now you turn”.
He crawled the car around the corner and straight up the road out the way of the junction and stopped. Then it was my go again.
I creeped along the curb - only using the clutch this time - and I managed to turn around the corner at the right time. But I still hit the damned curb! This time it was because the car wasn’t straight to begin with.
I went back to the start, where Dad said: “I’m not going to say anything this time”. OK, that’s scary but I can do this. Once again I crawled the car back along the curb, (are you bored yet? Because we certainly were by this stage, but I was determined to get this right!) looking in my mirrors and the back window.
When the corner came into my vision for the umpteenth time. I waited for the edge of it to disappear out of my left wing mirror so I could turn the wheel a touch to bring my little Smart ForFour around the corner and smoothly, in a straight line may I add, along the curb - not up it - and to a stop at a safe distance away from the junction. I looked at Dad. He smiled and stretched his arm out to pull me into his chest and kiss my forehead.
I’d done it! But - there’s always a ‘but’ - I was so determined to do the manoeuvre and get it right that I forgot to stop and do my observations before turning the corner, only for two pedestrians to cross the road in front of me. So despite the actual manoeuvre being good, I would’ve failed it were my test.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t satisfied with getting it right once so I did it again, only for exactly the same thing to happen again.
The final time was one time too many, for it didn’t go so well and we both decided enough was enough.
I may have failed if I’d performed any one of these attempts on my test, but I was just happy to have been able to get the manoeuvre right - and not only once but twice in a row, if it hadn’t been for those pesky pedestrians crossing the road at that particular moment in time!
It felt like something small had clicked and I think, with a little more practice, I’ll finally crack this manoeuvre.
Then it’ll be two down, one to go - I still haven’t quite mastered parallel parking yet, but I will.
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