FOLLOWING MY INSTINCTS 26-6-07

I have never been particularly worried about fitting in or following the crowd-after all where's the fun in being the same as everyone else? No, for better or worse I go on my own instincts. So why oh why do I feel the need to follow the car in front of me, even though it is travelling in another direction?

This sudden need to follow the crowd, when driving, caused me problems last week. I kept approaching roundabouts fully intending to come off at the correct exit. But if the driver in front left the roundabout before me, I started to panic that I was going in the wrong direction.

It is likely that this problem was caused by a lack of confidence on my part. My thinking went something like this -a fully licensed driver should know what they are doing and therefore if I copy them I won't make mistakes.

There are several problems with this theory, besides the obvious one that they may not be going my way, you should never assume any driver knows what they are doing! People make mistakes, and the biggest obstacle a learner driver has will always be other drivers.

As my sister pointed out, my method is still better than her first block of lessons, when her instinctive reaction to roundabouts was to take her hands off the wheel and panic! Now she says she just tends to refuse to go, even when it's clear.

During today's lesson, I was much better. For the first hour I did very little wrong, causing John to suspect I had been 'taking driving pills again'

My three- point turn is coming along but still needs some work. The 1st and 3rd sections were good; the middle manoeuvre was frankly dreadful. But hey, as the saying goes, two out of three ain't bad.

I was better at reversing when I first started to do it; again I think I'm over-thinking it.

After around an hour of driving I started to make silly mistakes.

I have been trying to learn my Highway Code, but the traffic symbols come at the end. That is the only excuse I can think of for not turning when rapidly coming up to a dead end. Twice.

Actually I'll use John's reasoning, which is that I tend to lose concentration near the end of my lessons.

To this end, on Friday we are cutting back to an hour and a half.

My brother is taking lessons in Chester, apparently he steers better with his right hand, thus he neglects his left. Sound familiar? My mother has a lot to answer for.

First published on http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/gazette-communities/ts5-acklam-and-linthorpe/ on 26/6/07