The wild blue yonder...

So, you've had a load of lessons, and passed your driving test...

Suddenly you're in the car on your own, and although you can drive and check your mirrors and steer properly and not crash into people at roundabouts and all of that, suddenly you've got to get to Bishop's Stortford, or Aberystwyth or Bradford or Nottingham, and there's nobody sat next to you saying "Take the next road on the left" or "At the roundabout, turn right, taking the third exit". You have to take enough attention from the road to be able to read the roadsigns, and you have to plan your journey before you start.

So I've been doing this lately with some of my pupils. I'm not on about someone who's still learning the basics, but if you're getting towards test standard, you can learn a lot from being expected to get from a-to-b, in an area you've never driven before, with minimal input from me.

This usually involves travelling through the Mersey Tunnels, which all of my pupils find both exciting and scary. I'm not saying where we go to on these trips, because that would spoil the surprise.

What else? Well One of my pupils had her test on Thursday. She touched the kerb while reversing around a corner unfortunately, and because she was a bit nervous, she couldn't work out how to correct it. Not a bad fail though. No other serious faults, and she'll be on familiar ground, and less nervous next time.

So what do you do if you make a mistake on your left reverse?

Well first of all, before you do anything, have a good look around and make sure it's clear. Then you can adjust things by going forward. If the back wheel has touched the kerb, then you need to steer towards the kerb while driving forward. This changes the angle of the car so that when you reverse again, you should be in a better position. But it's probably better to be a little bit wide than too close. The left reverse is not a parking exercise. You don't have to be very close to the kerb, although if you're reversing into a narrow street, you would need to be close enough not to cause a problem to people driving into the street.

That's about all for this post I reckon.