Saturday 12 January 2013

Driving tests from branches of Halfords


The government have given the go ahead for driving tests to run from some Halfords branches - read more here

Thursday 10 January 2013

Speed

By now we all should know the dangers of driving too fast, although many people still think they are safe flying round a corner because 'the car can handle that speed' That isn't the problem tho - if you cannot see round the corner then you don't know if there is an obstruction on the road ahead
So you are not just thinking about if the car can go at that speed but also adjusting your speed to how far ahead you can see.

An often overlooked danger is also driving to slow.
Some people think they are being safer by driving very slowly but this isn't the case - you become an unexpected hazard to other drivers. On single carriageways traffic can build up behind you are people get frustrated and take risks to try and overtake you - on motorways people may misjudge how slowly you are going and zoom up behind you too quickly having to break sharply or swerve into other lanes
Where a road is clear with good visibility and it is safe for you to do the speed limit you should be driving at or close to the speed limit

Monday 7 January 2013

Intensive/crash courses

Was one of your new years resolutions to learn to drive?
Do you feel you want to get it over and done with ASAP so think a intensive course is for you

Personally I do not recomend these for several reasons

The human brain benifits from time out to process things it has just learnt - this is called latent learning
After a couple of hours intensive learning your brain is just not taking in new information as effectivly as it would if you stopped and had a good nights sleep.

If you dont gell with your instructor you are still stuck with them, and of course you wont enjoy your lessons if you are dreading being in the car with them.

The pass rate is horrendously low

Actually if you are in a hurry to pass there is an easier way than cramming all your lessons into one week with a test at the end

Most people who contact me for a crash course havent even passed their theory yet - so booking that and waiting for the date then the waiting list for your practical test gives you about 2 months to take lessons in
Much better to take 2 - 3 2 hour lessons a week over the space of those 2 months than cramming everything into the last week - this also means you can adjust your number of lessons based on your own ability.