| The driving lesson |
| Wednesday, 02 July 2008 14:18 |
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Had my first driving lesson yesterday. Well, it wasn’t really my driving lesson in the strictest sense, though I suspect that I learnt more than the driver under instruction. So after my son had is first lesson with a ‘proper’ driving instructor I decided to throw caution to the wind and take him out on the road for some experience. Holy shit! I learnt a lot. Lesson #1: Right turns are harder then left turns. Yep. I forgot this. Guess which way we turned on our first junction? Lesson #2: Even the slightest incline is a huge hill to a learner. Not only did I cover lesson #1 on the first junction, but it was ever so slightly up hill as well. Just not enough up hill for a regular driver to notice. Lesson #3: Avoid the rush hour traffic. This isn’t so much because there’s more traffic on the roads, but that everyone is in a hurry to get home. Yep, so I learnt fast. My wife could tell I’d been on a roller coaster because I was apparently white when I got back. I’m pretty sure I’d aged quite a bit as well. We also managed to educate some of the other road users as well. Like the time when we were trundling down a major A road at 40 miles per hour, and my lad asked why was that big truck so close to us, can’t he see our ‘L’ plates, and what should he do about it. He changed from 4th to 5th gear, but somehow missed and ended up in third gear with the car lurching suddenly. Next look in the mirror saw a bunch of traffic behind us by at least 20 meters. They stayed there for the rest of the time we were all on the road. Chalk up one victory to a learner. The next task was the impending roundabout. “I only go left on roundabouts” he said. So we went left. That is, left towards a major crossroads that left us in front at the red light on a slight upward incline. So I instructed my laddo in the art of moving ourselves off when the lights changed and after our searches to the left and right. Plenty of revs and let the clutch out purposefully. We launched across the junction with a nice wheel spin that any drug dealing pimped up driver would have been proud of. All we had to do was to miss the cars opposite us and we were away. This brought us to the next set of lights, and I thought, let’s get him onto the small country lanes where we can do less damage. Wrong! I had the hedges coming in through my opened door window, then we had issues with oncoming traffic and narrow lanes, sharp left and right bends, more right hand corners, sweeping rolling roads and debris. Well, we did arrive home in on piece. And lesson number #4? Driving instructors are worth the money! Add your comment |