Have you been driving for a number of years?  Never been involved in an accident?  Do you think this is an indication of how safe you are?  Do you understand why and where crashes occur most often?  The following is an example of a very near-miss crash in one of the most common scenarios; it is a true story as it happened with myself and one of my pupils:

Location:  learner driver on main road with 50mph limit, having rounded a bend, ahead a T-junction on the right, some 10 seconds distant.

Scenario:  a vehicle arrives at the T- junction to turn right onto the main road; however, several vehicles approaching from the opposite direction caused the driver to stop; during the 10 second approach, instructor discusses this scenario with the pupil, as this is the kind of road environment commonly associated with crashes.

Event:  just as the last vehicle has passed the junction, the waiting vehicle emerges, at the moment when the learner car, proceeding ahead along the main road, is drawing level with this junction.  Instructor sounds the horn, pupil brakes promptly then, as emerging vehicle stops in response to horn, obstructing part of learner’s carriageway, learner swiftly responds to instruction to come off the brakes and steers through the available gap, thereby preventing a serious crash.

So what happened?  Why did this car driver pull out right in front of the learner?  The temptation is to label them as a fool but did that driver set out to be so foolish?  Are their normal driving skills really so bad?  I think not.  A simple, but nearly fatal error was made, most probably one of the following:

• the driver continued to focus on the vehicles obstructing their passage, approaching from the right, without any observations to the left during this time, a full 10 seconds.  Once the last vehicle had cleared the junction, the driver was still remembering the last thing they had observed to the left, which was that the road was clear, and simply forgot to check again, thereby pulling out straight into the path of another vehicle.
• The driver did observe left, taking one very quick glance, but because the junction was on a slight angle to the road, and the driver had failed to ’square up’, the approaching learner driver would have been in the blind spot/spots of the driver’s car - the windscreen pillar and/or the passenger seat head restraint;  the ‘driver looked but failed to see’, one of the most common police statements on crash investigation reports.

So, the lessons to be learned here:

• When waiting to emerge right at a T-junction, continue observing in both directions.
• When pulling out right or left from a T-junction, never rely on one brief glance in either direction as vehicles, and in particular motorbikes, can be hidden in your vehicle blindspots.
• Keep your thinking ‘active’, and never make any assumptions, especially at the most familiar junctions you use every day, at the same time, and where you believe you know every other vehicle on the road!  One day a ’stranger’ may arrive and catch you out.
• And never assume a crash-free driving career is a reliable indication of your driving safety - you will never know how many other drivers have been ‘proactive’ in their driving and have avoided a collision with you!

The best way to ensure your continued safety is to take a driver refresher course - you never know whose life you could save, maybe even yours!

PS.  Congratulations to Neisha Kerridge of Barford, Norwich, for handling this situation so admirably, even though you are a relatively inexperienced learner driver.  Your calmness at the time, and prompt actions, saved the day!  Very well done!

Learner drivers and, I might add, instructors (judging by queries posted recently on an instructors’ web site), concern themselves with the top ten reasons why pupils fail their tests.  My answer to that is that they simply are not ready to tackle the driving task alone out on the roads - even those who say their nerves caused them to fail, because perhaps those same nerves could cause them to have a crash, either because they are over-timid or because a driving test pass has now turned them into an over-confident driver!  Either way, there were aspects of the candidate’s driving which showed they were not yet safe enough to be allowed out alone.  However, because this question has been asked so often, you might like to download this pdf document - it is from Northern Ireland but, with the exception of the Highway Code section, everything else is relevant in the rest of the British Isles:

Top Ten Driving Test Faults

You might also want to take a look at this advice from the RAC: http://www.rac.co.uk/web/knowhow/learning_to_drive/the_driving_test/the_top_10_reasons_for_failure

This was the headline of a ‘news in brief” account I read recently in my local paper.  It concerned a VW Golf, without a driver, which moved out of the car park and crashed into the wall of a convent nearby.  The report stated a faulty handbrake was suspected and went on to report that it was the third time in a year that a car had damaged walls at the convent in this way.

Recent discussions with drivers has revealed to me that many people believe you should not leave your car in gear when parked, citing the reason for this belief being that their driving instructor always told them to leave the gear lever in neutral.  This highlights a lack of understanding behind the reason for the driving test safety check before switching on the engine, ie check handbrake is on first, then check the gear is in neutral: because there is a very sound safety reason why the car may have been left parked in gear, which is that if the handbrake fails, the car will be held by the gear-box now acting as a second brake.  All drivers are aware of the use of gears as a way of slowing the car down, (although this is not the principal method taught today), of braking in fact, but it appears many have not related this fact to when the vehicle is left in a parked position.

The advice should be:

Leave your car with the handbrake on and in gear whenever you are parked in a position, such as a car park, even with a slight slope, where a faulty handbrake could cause the vehicle to roll off and cause damage, even injury!

Leave you car in gear, but with the handbrake off:

• when leaving the vehicle for an extended period of time, eg when going on holiday
• when parked outside overnight during icy conditions

The reason for the above is that the handbrake, which operates on the rear wheels only, can seize up, thereby preventing you from moving the vehicle.

Far from being bad practice, leaving your car parked in gear is a wise safety precaution.  Just remember the important safety checks you were taught before starting the engine: check first that the handbrake is on and then that the gear lever is in neutral.

Driving and theory test fees for all car tests will increase for tests booked on or after 1st April 2008 (for motorcycle tests this will be for tests taken on or after 29th September).  Car test fees are as follows:

Theory test:   £30.00

Practical test:    weekdays £56.50    out of hours £67.00

Extended test:    weekdays £113.00    out of hours £134.00

So, to beat this price increase, book your tests before April 1st.

Click on the following link to read this tragic report in full:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7232821.stm

This is the reality of risk taking - just how many lives were affected by this young man’s casual approach to risk?

One in five new drivers is involved in a crash in his or her first year of driving.

13 per cent of licence holders are 25 or under, but more than 29 per cent of drivers killed are in this age group.

Male drivers aged 17 to 19 are almost ten times more likely to be killed or seriously injured behind the wheel than those aged 40 to 59.

In 2004, 187 male drivers aged 17 were killed compared with 36 females.

Sources: Driving Standards Agency; DfT; Brake; the Times

With statistics like this it is easy to rush and try to deal with the symptom when we should be dealing with the root cause.  Why is it that this age group is crashing, and killing themselves (and others) more than the rest of the driving population?  Will restrictions solve the problem?  The New Drivers Act, requiring those within the first 2 years after passing their driving test to retake the whole test, including the theory test, if they acquire 6 points on their licence, has managed to ‘lose’ more than half of those drivers who have fallen foul of this act.  Where are they?  Surely they haven’t all given up driving?  The awful explanation would seem to be that a high percentage of them are driving around illegally!  We must beware, therefore, of any knee-jerk reactions to these statistics which could have a similar result. (read the full article on this report at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1728930.ece)

At Caremotoring we believe passionately that learner drivers must be educated to become skilled thinking drivers before they pass their driving test.  It is for this reason that we are currently developing our e-learning course, and it is also the reason why we want to encourage all learner drivers to have as much private practice as possible.  With the help of Lancashire County Council’s excellent ‘Perfect Partner’ resource, we will help anyone who is willing, and legally entitled, to provide these extra practice sessions for the learner.  And, by filling in a few short questionnaires, you will also be helping valuable research into young driver safety. 

If insurance for the learner is your concern, if you cannot, or would rather not, include them on your insurance, then please visit http://www.clickthepepper.com for details of an innovative new insurance product for learner drivers.

To learn more about developing young driver thinking skills, download Stephen Haley’s document: The Essential Thinking Skills

The IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) has called on the government to do more about the carnage on our rural roads, particularly as two thirds of these crashes, too often resulting in death or very serious injury, involve young drivers who, in the words of a spokesperson from the road safety charity Brake, “treat rural roads like personal race tracks”.

Read the full article at the Times Online: http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article2859626.ece

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_5360000/newsid_5364000?redirect=5364004.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1 

Click the link above to view a BBC news video concerning the topic of learner drivers needing ‘a year of lessons’. Comments welcome so please do email us your thoughts.

Care Motoring is pleased to announce that we have been invited to take part in a national campaign, launched just a few weeks ago by the Driver Education and Research Foundation (derf), to encourage young novice drivers, as well as learner drivers, to take part in the Defensive Drivers’ Promise initiative by agreeing to take extra training post-test in defensive driving techniques.  Here at Caremotoring, that is exactly what we do - our e-learning programme will be focussing exclusively on these techniques, the essential driver thinking skills, so that our learners are given an understanding of what is meant by defensive driving before they pass their test.  In this way the progression to the Defensive Drivers’ Promise post-test will seem a natural one.  Linked to this, we will be offering  Diamond Plus, based on a combination of Pass Plus and the Diamond Advanced Motorist Test, administered by the Driving Instructors Association (DIA).  For more details please fill in the contact form or use the contact details given on the contact page.

For more information on the Defensive Drivers’ Promise campaign, vist www.derf.org.uk

Currently the whole process of learning to drive, and the driving test itself, are under review by the Government. As a result of this, there have been many announcements in the press, often resulting in misunderstanding by the readers, who then verbally pass on their interpretations. These interpretations evolve, in much the same way as ‘Chinese Whispers’ evolve, and the end result is a complete exaggeration of the truth! So, if you hear some incredible rumour about the process of learning to drive, the driving test and post-test restrictions, ask the experts first. Please do call us and we will gladly give you the latest, accurate, information.