Our Cars: Charlotte Cobbs
30 May 2012:
Seeing red (lights)
When I got in Vaughan’s car, he asked: “Is there anything you’d like to do today?” Unhelpfully, I replied: “No. Nothing in particular” because I’d got a little bit of practice on dual carriageways yesterday when my dad let me drive back from Essex. I was also bored of doing manoeuvres and town driving because I’d done a lot of it recently.
So, we decided on a mixture of everything. Instead of going straight ahead at the second T-junction of the journey like normal - this would’ve taken us on the regular route - we turned left, which led us over a railway (thankfully, the barriers were up, otherwise we would’ve spent half the lesson waiting for trains to pass).
I turned left immediately after the railway and went along the residential road. We may have been lucky with the railway, but we had to wait at the traffic lights at the end of the road. Once they’d changed, I turned onto a 50mph dual carriageway, going straight ahead at each roundabout.
It was all flowing well until... we were hit with what felt like miles of stationary cars. ‘Oh dear’ was my first thought. But then I decided to turn it into a positive: ‘I can take time to see where I am, where I’m going, what’s going on around me and practice my clutch control’.
We eventually got through it, but I missed my turning and had to go round the roundabout and sit in it again. It didn’t take as long to clear this time. I went the right way, which took us onto another dual carriageway.
Eventually we went through residential roads, which involved a lot of meeting situations and giving way, but I dealt with them well. There were a couple of situations I could’ve dealt with better and Vaughan pulled me over to talk about them.
We’d been though about three different towns since coming off the dual carriageway and it seemed like I was stopping at every traffic light or traffic calming system we came across. It probably wasn’t as bad in reality as it felt, but it seemed like we couldn’t get anywhere today.
I thought I’d got away from the usual haunts today, but Vaughan did say we’d do a mixture and we didn’t spend too long in them so it was OK.
One thing I couldn’t away from today was road works - they were even in these quiet little residential roads. Nevertheless, we got through them and Vaughan pulled over to talk for the final time before I drove home.
« Earlier: About town
Later: Test day »
Updates
After a quick drive in the area around the test centre it was time to put all that practice to use, and take my practical test...
30 May 2012: Seeing red (lights)
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