Our Cars: Charlotte Cobbs
19 December 2011: Kerb-o-phobia
I was going backwards in more ways than one as today’s lesson mirrored a very similar pattern to the last.
We started by driving through the usual haunts until Vaughan asked me to pull over and “reverse”. I looked around for the junction to reverse around. There was one a little distance in front of us but none behind. I looked at him blankly.
“Reverse straight back”. He said.
OK, we’re starting where we left off.
I put the car into reverse and brought the clutch up enough to crawl along the road, desperately trying to keep the gap between the road the curb unchanged all the way along. It didn’t happen. Just as with the first time I did this on Monday, I zig-zagged backwards. Nevertheless, I did end with the car the same width away from the curb as I started, it was just a shame about the middle part.
So, Vaughan tried something different: “Now drive forward, keeping this distance along the curb”. I couldn’t even do that.
I did the same exercise, creeping forwards and backwards along the same stretch of road, once more. When I pulled over, the rear end of the car was on the curb with the front sticking out, Vaughan asked me: “Where are you looking when you pull over?
“At the road” I replied
“Where in the road? Right on top of the car, at the end of the road, at the curb?”
“In between the end of the road and on top of the car”.
“OK. You need to use a point of some sort. Sitting here, I use the marker on the windscreen wiper”.
I had the same on my side so I could use that too - the trouble was it was raining so it kept moving. Anyway, I drove backwards again, which was finally “good” and Vaughan opened his passenger door so I could see that I was parked against the curb - not on top of it - and the car was straight. And then I tried the marker technique driving forward. It didn’t work.
Vaughan said to me: “If you remember, I got you to do this [drive forward, straight along the road] on our first lesson and you could do it perfectly then. Why can’t you do it now?”.
“I don’t know”.
‘It’s because you’re scared of hitting the curb. It’s been there from the start - you’ve always been scared of hitting things so you’ll veer away from them and then you’ll oversteer to get it back”. I hate to admit to it but he was completely right. Dad had also noticed my over-compensation when it came to steering on manoeuvres.
“When we first did this exercise, you had no problem with pulling over because you didn’t have any issues with it but you’ve picked some up issues whilst you’ve been driving and put some barriers up against pulling over and it has gotten worse and worse.
“We spent months trying to get rid of them. Don’t go down that road again!”
I promise, I will not go down that road again. I’ve come too far to let the last sixteen months go to waste!
I tried it once more and it was better, but still not right so Vaughan asked me to do “a turn in the road, drive along and park up against the silver car on the right”.
“The turn in the road was good” but I still couldn’t park up straight. This was getting really boring, not to mention frustrating!
We drove around the block before ending up in the same road, where Vaughan asked me to pull over “next to that tree” - and I did - hitting the curb once again.
After several circuits, Vaughan asked me to pull over in numerous different places. Only a handful of times were right.
The drive home wasn’t much better with similar mistakes happening to those on last lesson, but I won’t bore you with them. Let’s just say Dad’s going to be doing a lot of to-and-froing over the weekend. Reversing around the corner can come later.
« Earlier: More reversing... Later: Back on track »
