Here under-21s have to do 120 hours of supervised driving, keeping a log book. A bit hard on teenagers who don't have car-owning parents.
I learned on lessons only (could never get on with my mum's Herald) and from memory it took 27 lessons and two test attempts to get my licence.
It was a very good thing. My dad spent so much time warning me about the possibility that a child might run out from behind that car, someone might jump off that tram, that car might suddenly pull out, that when I began to drive on my own I was in a perpetual state of extreme apprehension. Which made driving very tiring, but I bless him for his warnings.
Time was when it would have been a matter of pride to a young guy to know a bit about cars. But I've seen quite a few peering helplessly under the bonnet, every bit as helpless as the stereotypical female (but without any chance of a person of the opposite sex coming to his aid!).
I wonder if the biggest problem is the matter of closing speeds. If a moment ago you were doing 30, but are trying to accelerate to 70 while joining a fast traffic stream, you need to know quite a bit about the performance of your vehicle, as well as having acquired some degree of judgement of other vehicles' speeds. I know there have been a couple of times when I've been trying to push the accelerator through the floor in a rented van which didn't have the power I expected.
On 14/05/2013 01:52, Windmill wrote: ....
That reminds me of an incident in the 1960s. The wife of a friend was driving her Mini when it stopped. She got out and opened the boot to get out a tool kit. A passing Policeman (they still walked the beat then) asked if she needed help. She said no thank you, it will be the fuel pump filter, which she promptly cleaned and replaced, to the surprise of the watching Policeman. She didn't tell him it was about the only thing she knew how to do and that only because it happened so often that she had had to learn it.
Colin Bignell
The main thing new drivers don't know is what the hard shoulder is for. If you do get it wrong while trying to join the motorway you don't just stop at the end, you use the hard shoulder. the number of times I have seen drivers that are too stupid to understand this is shocking. Maybe its time to bring back public information films?
>In article , Grimly Curmudgeon scribeth thus
Dunno really .. none of them ever had any what you might term as serious accidents the minor bump over 10's of years.
Two of them were engine drivers on the railways so were pretty safety conscious;!..
Except my dad 'tho, he did his driver training at the behest of His Majesty on a motorbike and then honed his skills over on the Isle of Man and do I remember making several hospital trips over the years when young, its a wonder he survived to 83 to have a heart attack on his bed one nite;!...
Not a bad idea in principle..
There were a couple of lads down at the filling station trying to work out how to pump the tyre's up on their newly bought Peugeot car, and then I had to translate BAR's to PSI for them;!..
Awww ... I was expecting it had a happy ending with the policeman falling in lurve with this motor minded girl;)...
In article , Arfa Daily scribeth thus
Bit like exam's at school nowadays...
Seems like a sensible idea... (probably with limitations on the people who can be supervisors! - i.e. no other under 21s)
IIRC, I booked a pack of 10 lessons, had about 6 of them, then had a gap where I probably drove a thousand miles or more with supervision over a few weeks, then had the the remainder, and an extra lesson on the morning of the test.
Those lessons would be a bit of a bugger to take if you live in Cornwall, North Wales or you are a North of Perth heathen;-)
Yes I did watch it. And I was scared.
Is that to teach people how to break Highway Code rule 259?
Quite.
I have _never_ had to do that. And when I have occasionally seen someone go onto the hard shoulder like that, I am extremely concerned about what their next action might be.
In message , tony sayer writes
Not forgetting the woman at the filling station with a hillman imp who I thought to ask if she knew what she was doing just before she was about to attempt to fill the brake master cylinder with petrol
Well I have, once. When you match your speeed and line up in a gap and have some idiot that isn't considering other users cut into the nearside lane without even indicating you aren't left with much choice.
You either be an idiot and stop, in which case you have to use the hard shoulder to rejoin, or you use the hard shoulder to find a new gap.
As the rule says "should not" rather than "must not".
I found after a few trips being driven by my grandmother, there is little left to really scare you ;-)
She "learnt" to drive in the days before tests, and hence never took one. Got off to an inauspicious start by actually rolling the first car she ever drove. ;-)
Please Ghod let there be a copper there when dennis tries this dumbfuck trick.
Are you that stupid that you actually think the police would think it was the wrong thing to do? When are you taking your first driving lesson? You can ask the instructor.
The Motorways Traffic (England and Wales) Regulations 1982, Regulation 9:
No vehicle shall be driven, stop, or remain at rest on any hard shoulder except in accordance with paragraphs (2) and (3) of Regulation 7.
The penalty is three points and a £60 fine.
Regulation 7 paragraph 2 allows for stopping on the hard shoulder in the case of a breakdown, mechanical defect, lack of oil, fuel or water, accident, illness or other emergency, to permit any person carried in or on the vehicle to recover or move any object that has fallen onto a motorway or to permit helping any other person who has stopped for one of those reasons.
Regulation 7 paragraph 3 requires that any vehicle stopped on the hard shoulder shall, so far is is reasonably practical, present no hazard to any vehicle using the motorway and not remain there longer than is necessary.
Colin Bignell
And where exactly does using the hard shoulder to *safely* join the main carriageway fall into that?
I suggest you stop trying to be a lawyer as you have failed the entrance exam.
Precisely. It is not one of the allowed reasons. Like doing a lobotomy on yourself - better find somewhere other than a hard should to do it. Seems your lawyering also fails to entrance.
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