Our Cars: Charlotte Cobbs
2 January 2012: Up to speed
I felt good before my first lesson of the year, on Wednesday. We started off driving through the usual haunts and two more towns, encountering various roads and situations from residential roads and even part of the A27, to pedestrians and dustbin trucks. You know what it’s like.
We continued on, chatting away, because we’d found I now drive better whilst jabbering away to Vaughan and taking my mind off driving so I don’t over-complicate situations. I don’t over-complicate situations, do I? Why do I do that? How do I stop doing it?
But, seriously, Vaughan knows me well and this technique worked so much so that when he asked me to “pull over in a safe, convenient and legal place”, I hadn’t realised how we got to where were or even where we were. We’d stopped on a hill to talk some things through and once we’d done that, Vaughan asked me to do a turn in the road. This could be fun.
“Just use the handbrake and you can do this,” I thought. At least, it wasn’t reversing around the corner of the junction not too far away. And I did it to a “good” standard, which I was pleased about.
So we continued on our journey, yakking away until we got home and the lesson was over. The good feeling I’d had before the lesson was well-founded as the Christmas break had given me the chance to relax and not think about driving, enabling me to drive well.
And so to today’s lesson. Rarely do I have two consecutive good lessons, so I wasn’t as enthusiastic about today. Anyway, following on from Wednesday’s one, we went through the same sort of roads. It seemed to be going well for the first half of the journey as we chatted away about this and that.
Then, every now and then, Vaughan would mention my speed was a little too high, but he didn’t pull me over for another half an hour.
During this time, we’d arrived somewhere I didn’t recognise, (it wasn’t the same place as Wednesday’s lesson) and there were parked cars on both sides of the road too, so I slowed down and crawled to end at the road. “At the end of the road, turn left, and then take the next right and pull over”. So I did.
“How was that?” Vaughan asked.
“The first half was OK but the second half didn’t feel that good because I was speeding at times”.
“And why do you think that was?”
“Because the first half had felt good so I got confident”.
Vaughan agreed and gave me some advice and some scary facts about speed, because mine had been creeping up as my confidence grew. But, I won’t scare you off the road with them - all I’ll say is speed limits are set for a reason.
After this, we headed home, with me keeping a very close eye on my speed whilst chatting away. I still need to watch my road positioning but this week’s lessons have gone well. It feels like I’ll reach my goal this year.
« Earlier: Back on track Later: A bad feeling about this... »
