A good use of £40? You decide...... www.BIGTOM.org.uk

If ever you want to know how ready you are to drive independently after your test, just do what one of my Learners did yesterday, and ask for an Assessment Drive.  I wont name her to save embarrassment but I would like to give some details about what happened, as it was a very worthwhile exercise.

I have 2 Assessment Drives up my sleeve, entirely different journeys.  One of them is like walking a tight rope, it is an extremely good test of how well you can adapt your driving to the conditions.  A PDI of mine (Trainee Driving Instructor) did it fairly recently, and was so impressed by it that he mapped it out in its entirety when he got home.  The other one, the route my Learner did yesterday is much more different.  It is the kind of journey that we all do, very commonly, not giving it much thought, but perhaps if I share some comments about what happened yesterday, other Learners may be prepared to give it a go.

So when I picked my Learner up, I showed her the intended route on a large map, she confirmed she had never been on that journey, it is going from Peterborough to Bourne, to Stamford and back to Peterborough.  So it is A15, A6121, A1, A47 – exactly a 40 mile trip for those interested in these things.  Remember this is nothing about tests here, this is all about giving my Learners the opportunity to see how prepared they are for driving on journeys independently.  The only thing I wrote out on a post-it note and stuck on the dash was this:

“You must be able to stop in a distance seen to be clear”

This golden principle of safe driving was the one message that she got out of her previous session a few days previously – so in effect, the objective of this session was to drive this route today applying that principle all the way.

My Learner had to first of all follow signs for A15 Sleaford from the middle of Peterborough – this is just as they do on the 10 minute independent drive section of the test.  If you were to do this first leg of the journey today you could well be thinking to yourself how easy it is, but it is precisely the fact that it is ‘so easy’, so boring that fatalities occur on it with too much frequency – two separate examples have featured on my Facebook driving page in the last 2 years.   You very often get slow moving vehicles on this road, drivers see the width of the road, and go for the most inappropriate overtakes you could ever imagine.  The other thing that this first leg tests quite nicely is planning.  It has many directional changes and so a driver has to spot which exit off the rounadabouts for example, and plan the correct lane on the approach.  It also has you driving along in Nationals at around 60 for much of it and yet there are a good few villages you go through at 40, a couple of them have rather nasty blind crossroads slap bang in the middle which require approaching with caution.

We get up to Bourne and I asked my Learner to take the Toft route to Stamford.  So Peterborough to Bourne is generally northwards, going across to Stamford is generally westwards.  She immediately got stung from the hill that springs up from nowhere to go up to the golf club – didn’t drop a gear to help the engine up the hill.  You see, this is what happens, she’s just driven for half an hour on the flattest of flat roads, and then she is met with what has to be said is quite a steep, windy incline that just pops up in an instant! 

She had cyclists riding in both directions that affected her big time.  


For those that do not know, this A6121 is not the widest, if you have a cyclist approaching you on the other side of the road, with vehicles behind the cyclist, then for them to overtake the cyclist they have to come on to your lane.  So, this requires careful planning, a very tricky skill to develop when both vehicles are approaching each other at a combined 120mph.

At one point my Learner had 2 motorbikes feature within 15 secs of each other.  The first was behind her, and overtook her just before a left bend.  Didn’t seem to me to be too clever.  As she continued to approach that left bend, another meaty motorbike approached her from that bend, cutting the bend!  So when he passed my Learner, he just shaved her on the offside – I would estimate with a door widths clearance only.  My Learner held it together very nicely, but it’s not lost on me that, that driving from the bikes although being incredibly dangerous to them, could very easily have thrown a Learner, and we end up veering off the road.  I recently posted on my G+ page how motorbikes affect safety on these windy, hilly roads.  All very ‘interesting’ for the bike riders I’m sure, but they should spare a thought of how their actions can affect other road users.

Whilst still in the national speed limit (60), the road starts to decline gradually at first.  And then there is a double whammy, there is a sharp left, then a couple of 30 signs spring up with extremely little warning, followed by a sharp right – all of this on a very steep downhill.  Not sure if you can picture that scenario, but it is a job to keep the car within the 30mph limit.  A classic test of the principle set at that start on the dashboard, and my Learner handled it perfectly.  Big dips in the road feature, which test accelerator sense - keeping the car progressing constantly despite sometimes steep incline/declines.     


And at the top of one of these hills, at the right side of the road, were a Mother and 2 little toddlers on their bikes, waiting to cross the road!   It’s difficult for me to explain how hazardous this was, but it seemed to me the most inappropriate place to be taking such small kids on their bikes – I’ve got 2 little ones, and I know how unpredictable they can be on bikes.  But my Learner was alive to the potential hazard.

And the last thing that happened of note on this 2^nd leg of the journey was a Police car approached from behind on a call.   On these rural roads, you generally see flashing lights before you hear two tones , my Learner reacted calmly.  The only thing she missed doing was a left signal, just to reinforce to the Police driver that she was pulling over as she had seen him.  But that aside, her actions were measured – and the systematic use of mirrors that she does, ensured she saw him approaching well in time.  Unlike what the car about 50m in front of us did when seeing the Police car.  The driver violently swerved to the left, mounting the verge and coming to a sudden stop.  Best of intentions I know, but the manner of pulling over like that is in itself creating a further potential hazard for the Police driver.

Ok so we are now in Stamford, and we come to a crossroads, controlled by traffic lights, on a steep incline.  Thankfully the lights went red which was precisely what I was hoping for.  You see this now poses 2 jobs needing to be done:  moving off when the lights go green, without rolling back, and negotiating turning right on the crossroads.  My Learner did the moving off fine, but was a little uncomfortable with how to turn right.  All the traffic directly opposite her was also on a green, as she was, and she progressed just a little too far forward before pausing, which would have slightly inhibited them if they were going straight on.  As it turned out, they all turned left, but that’s not the point really – it was a valuable lesson learnt, seeing how tight the middle part of that crossroads junction was, so that she knew where the appropriate place to sit and wait was.  This is the kind of thing that only exposes itself when you are in an unfamiliar area. 

She then entered on to the A1 very nicely – no small task in itself.  It started to rain, and she sat 4 seconds behind a lorry travelling at about 55mph.  A sensible option given the conditions and the fact that she was going to exit the A1 in an unfamiliar exit (I had asked her to plan to take the ‘Peterborough North’ exit).  For anyone who does not know, that exit requires careful planning to spot how severely it bends to the left once you get on to the exit slip road.  I like to see all the meat of the speed being rubbed off on the exit slip so that we don’t inconvenience anyone still on the A1 behind us, and my Learner did this perfectly.  It was another example of the golden principle set at the start of the session.  And she then came back to her home via the A47. 

The only significant driving error I spotted on this ‘homeward’ leg of the journey, was when exiting off the A47.  My Learner needed to exit off the d/c in lane 2 of the exit slip, as she then was planning to take the 3^rd exit right at the approaching roundabout (Thorpe Wood).  Whilst her position was perfect on the exit, she did leave her left indicator on (from the exit) while in lane 2, on the approach to turn right, which would be very confusing/misleading to drivers behind her.  It is a big ask, because the approach to the roundabout is a steep downhill, and if you are not controlling your speed appropriately from the exit off the A47, then it all tends to come towards you a little fast.  It was a good learning point, we actually have a good few examples of that scenario in Peterborough.  You have to plan the exit, whilst also reading the fact that the road is dipping down ahead of you, so you then need to get yourself ‘speed aware’ so that you don’t bowl up to the roundabouts too quickly from the momentum (the r/b near North Bretton is a case in point, and look how many accidents occur at the bottom of that exit slip road precisely for this reason).

My Learner really enjoyed the 1hr 15 mins of driving, and we had a good de-brief of the stuff that occurred.  It is a very good example of the thrust of my driver training aims.... you drive more, you experience more, you learn more.

BIG TOM Driving School  Intensive Driving Course in Peterborough, Grantham, Stamford, Spalding, Sleaford and Boston.  0800 689 4174