Sometimes people see the L plates on my driving school car
and really go out of their way to try and help, but in doing so, kind of make
things a little awkward. I’m often
pleasantly surprised how thoughtful others can be to Learners, but we had an
example of this only the other day right outside the Test Centre at
Peterborough, while on a standard driving lesson.
My Learner was practising coming out of the Test Centre on
to that main road. For people who don’t
know the area, you are attempting to emerge on to a very busy main road. The Test Centre is situated within an
Industrial Estate, so as you immediately exit the car park, lorries can and
often do feature. But after leaving the
car park, you then come to a bulk standard ‘T’ junction, that is on a very
slight uphill gradient. So you have a
few things to deal with having left the Test Centre car park about 30 seconds
previously; let’s look at some of the possibilities:
Vehicle turning into your road. Very often, a vehicle (including lorries)
turn into the minor road as you either approach or are actually at the give way
lines.
Busy major road. You can (and regularly do) have to wait up to
a minute to emerge. Resisting the urge
to just go what with all the nerves flying round your belly is key.
Uphill gradient. It is only slight, but enough to make the car
roll back if you don’t fully control it.
So all the above will probably be going round your head as
you sit there waiting to turn left or right.
But what I witnessed the other day was really quite odd. As my Learner was sat waiting to emerge
right, a cyclist in the major road, coming from the right, saw him, and
actually stopped! What?! There was a bit of staring at each other for
a few seconds, before eventually, my Learner gestured to the cyclist to say ‘after
you’. Although the cyclist was
attempting to be really considerate, what he didn’t realise was that my Learner
couldn’t emerge because there was so much traffic on the major road. This kind of thing does crop up from time to
time, maybe a pedestrian at a zebra crossing, waves you through the crossing,
or maybe a car flashes you to drive across them. All very kind, but they are not necessarily
aware of who else is around them, that makes what they intend, really
hazardous.
For example, going back to my Learner the other day, imagine
for a second what a mess would have developed if a driver intending to turn
right into our minor road, had spotted the cyclist waiting for us to emerge,
and ALSO waited to allow us to emerge!
So you would then have increasing pressure on my Learner to emerge as we
now have traffic queuing up to the left and a cyclist waiting to the
right. But, what about the traffic
coming from the right? Do they
necessarily give 2 hoots about us in the minor road, do they realise why the
cyclist in front of them has stopped, and do they have to normally wait for a
car turning across them? Hmmmm..... very
hazardous, remember you should not make anyone stop, swerve, or slow. You would need to assess that whole situation
before you, and realise that actually, emerging in front of traffic coming from
the right is not the best of starts for your Driving Test.
Generally speaking, it is not our job as we drive round, to
tell others what to do, where to go and control when they do it. The reason is, you simply can’t necessarily
be totally aware of everything that is around you, so gesturing for a
pedestrian to cross the road, or waving a lorry out on to a main road are
things to be avoided. But, in this
particular example, I quite like the way my Learner dealt with the
cyclist. The cyclist simply waved to my
Learner and continued on his way. My
Learner then emerged shortly after.
Being able to assess these kinds of situations is no small
thing, and comes with experience. Last
week an examiner took hold of a situation my Learner found himself in, and
assisted dealing with some rather hazardous road works. Full respect goes to that examiner, we are truly
blessed with some excellent examiners at Peterborough Test Centre.
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