Driving Lessons in ............

Driving Lessons in Bourne

One of the frustrations when we learn to drive, is that we sometimes appear to be getting worse rather than better.  This can be a very unsettling feeling, it can knock confidence and reduce motivation, not to mention the fact that you begin to feel like you are wasting your hard earned money and your time.  Take some comfort from the fact that this is not a problem only with driving lessons, this perception of lack of progression is felt by keen sports people, academics, and can even affect us in our work life.

Focussing on learning to drive though, there can be many reasons why this occur, and I expand on some of them in my video here.  In this blog, I want to solely look at where you train because this is a crucial point.

The first thing to say is for most people, but not all, they want to ultimately be able to drive anywhere in the UK, and possibly even abroad some day.  So it stands to reason, that if you are potentially going to be driving on roads in other cities, towns, villages across the UK, the more variety when you are training, the better.   

Let’s just consider one example to emphasise this point.  Let’s say you live in a small town about 20 minutes drive from any major town/city.  You could take the approach that you will learn to drive in your local town, “Hey... it has public roads – so if I can drive on them, I can drive anywhere.... right?”   Wrong!  There simply will not be the variety of driving conditions in your small town that comes even close to what you can reasonably expect to encounter if you were to drive any significant journey.  Dual carriageways, motorways, spiral roundabouts, yellow box junctions, single track roads, level crossings, multi-storey car parks, parallel parking on the right side of the road, equestrian crossings, are all examples of things that may only crop up in certain areas that you train.  So if you are keen to prepare for being able to drive independently, anywhere, then you would do well not to ignore this point.

Where you train, where you do your test and where you subsequently intend to drive are all very relevant to this subject.  Training in different places, encountering new situations, and negotiating around a variety of road layout, traffic signage, volume of traffic, will inevitably be challenging.  There may well be occasions when you think you are not progressing, but in fact, you are continuing to learn.  The experience of dealing with these unfamiliar driving conditions is critical in developing your skills to drive safely for the rest of your life.

In summary, although driving in unusual areas brings about a challenge that can be quite demanding, do not lose sight of what you are actually achieving.  Any perceived lack of progress on your part, will be rewarded in bucket loads by the experiences you are receiving along the way.  This will make the driving test look like a ‘walk in the park’ but more importantly, it will be significantly preparing you for the attitudes and ability for safe driving after passing your driving test.       

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