I have just found this site:  http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/2008/07/parking-lessons.html  (opens in new window).  It horrifies me that driving instructors behave in this way!  Is it any wonder that the habit of parking on the pavement, with no thought for the pedestrians it was put there for, is becoming more common?  Everywhere I go these days, including the street where I live, cars are blocking pavements, forcing pedestrians out into the road and into the danger of the traffic these drivers are trying  ‘considerately’ to leave more space for!  Yes, this is currently my pet hate.  Please remember pedestrians include the blind and the disabled, mums with pushchairs, the elderly, dog walkers, children.  Drivers, you are entitled to park on the road where it is safe, legal and convenient; you are definitely not entitled to park on the pavement!  If you believe you will obstruct traffic, don’t park there.  If you believe vehicles may have to slow down or stop to deal with your parked vehicle, then that’s fine, it really is up to drivers to deal with it, as with any hazard on the road.  So, before you park, think: Safe? Legal? Convenient?  If any of these does not apply, don’t park there, and certainly, please do not choose the pavement as an alternative.

With regards to driving instructors, well it is unforgiveable if any instructor actually teaches a pupil parking skills anywhere that is not safe, legal or convenient (this is actually tested in the driving test).  However, driving instructors must occasionally allow their pupils to park somewhere which does not fulfil these criteria in order to enable the learner to assess for themselves why their chosen place is unsuitable.  In this way we will hopefully reduce the high rate of such bad parking as we see today.

According to a survey by Saga Motor Insurance, holidaymakers are putting themselves at risk by driving home tired after long flights.  Fatigue kills!  Do not put yourself,or other innocent roadusers, at risk by attempting to drive straight home after a long flight - or even a short one if the day itself has been long and busy and your arrival back in the UK is late in the evening.  Plan for this before your holiday and book one more night in a hotel close to the airport.  Driving tired is as dangerous as drink driving and could land you in jail if you kill someone!  So, enjoy your summer break, and make it just one night longer and book that hotel in the UK.  Bonnes Vacances!

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheaper-fuel

Follow this link to read Martin’s money saving tips for fuel efficient driving.  Although these money-saving tips were given to Martin by the RAC, the fuel-efficient driving style is consistently taught by advanced driver trainers.  Care Motoring has fuel efficiency, coupled with safety, at its heart - letter E in CARE stands for EcoSafe - and Martin’s recent overseas holiday proved that our promise to you of savings in fuel, without sacrificing journey time, is true.  If you would like to learn more about money-saving driving techniques, then please contact us now:

email: info@caremotoring.co.uk

tel: 01362 698441  or call free on 0800 298 4380

Read our previous tip, ‘Reduce Your Vehicle Running Costs’ (click on the archive May 2008).

The late Paul Smith founded the SafeSpeed campaign in 2001 to highlight what he considered to be unsafe road policies, particularly with regard to speed cameras, set against a background of rising numbers of young novice drivers involved in serious crashes.  Paul believed passionately that the wrong messages were being given out and that much more needed to be done both to educate drivers and give back responsibility to them. On December 10th 2007, just 3 days before his sudden and tragic death from heart failure, Paul wrote his advice to novice drivers, advice which is now addressed by the new BTEC qualification in Driving Science, which Care Motoring is accredited to deliver, and which I am sure would have been greeted enthusiastically by Paul.  You can download a copy of this advice from Paul by following this link: safe-speeds-advice-to-young-drivers.doc

To learn more about the BTEC qualification in Driving Science, click on the link in the menu bar.

Can you believe the price of fuel now?  Have you noticed just how quickly the price has gone up since it hit the £1 per litre mark?  Diesel now around £1.22 a litre in my area and so we see the knock-on effects in the shops and in the services we buy (including driving lessons, of course!).  So, are you beginning to find it a struggle to make ends meet each week/month?  Perhaps you have been able to reduce some of your vehicle running costs through other forms of transport - perhaps you have a convenient bus service, or maybe you’ve polished up your old bike and got it roadworthy again, or maybe your bike, which was used just for recreational purposes, is now being used to get you to work or the children to school, or perhaps you are simply walking to those nearby places instead of getting the car out?  Whatever measures you’ve taken along these lines are to be applauded as you become fitter and healthier and reduce the cost to the environment at the same time.  Well done!

 But what about those times when you do have to use the car, when there is no other viable alternative?  Are there ways you could reduce your costs there?  Well yes actually, there are 2 very different but very effective ways which, when combined, could potentially lead you to making savings of up to 20% on your fuel bill! 

“Tell me more!” I hear you cry!  Well I’m sure you’ve guessed already that one of those ways is to refresh your driving, bring it up-to-date, especially if you passed your driving test more than 10 years ago and you have not had any kind of refresher training since.  Driver training will teach you better ways to use the vehicle controls to reduce fuel consumption, and will ensure greater safety and passenger comfort through a more proactive approach to hazards, as opposed to a reactive style.  You could save between 10 and 15 per cent in fuel consumption, reduce wear and tear on your brakes, tyres, gear box and engine and, most importantly, you will greatly reduce your own stress levels (even if you believe you don’t have any stress when driving, believe me you really will notice a difference!).  With an onboard computer in my car I am able to check my fuel consumption regularly; currently I am getting around 64mpg on local driving, with 72 mpg achieved on long distance.  However, whenever I have had a qualified driver driving my car, someone on a driver training course for example, their first drives increase the fuel consumption quite markedly.  It’s amazing how much better the drivers perform once this is pointed out to them, the evidence there to see!  So how much do you think you could save?  Why not give driver training a try?  You might be very pleasantly surprised!

UPDATE:  Read Martin Lewis’s article on cutting your fuel spend by a third.  Click on the link:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheaper-fuel

The other way you can save fuel, and reduce the negative effects on the environment at the same time, is to add Dipetane Fuel Treatment to your fuel tank, reducing fuel consumption by 8 - 10%.  To find out more about this option, click on the following link:

Helps combust the fuel more efficiently to improve fuel economy whilst lowering smoke and emissions.  For use in Petrol and Diesel. www.dipetanedistribution.co.uk

And by combining these 2 money-saving initiatives you could potentially save yourself up to 20% on your fuel bill!  Why not try one then add the other - saving money can become quite addictive!

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!

Do you do the lottery?  Do you hope every week that ‘it could be you’?  Do you know the odds of winning the lottery?  Yes, I’m sure you do, but it’s still worth a go isn’t it?  After all, someone’s got to win!

What if I told you there was another game of chance where the odds are 30 times greater than the lottery?  Interested?  In fact, you have a one in 200 chance of winning, now how about that for good odds?

So, what is this game?  It’s the Road Death game!  Yes, we Britons have a one in 200 chance of dying in a road crash.  How about that?  Much shorter odds by train, that’s 1 in 65,000 and by air, shorter still, 1 in 7.6 million in fact!  This is according to an unpublished report by the Department for Transport, obtained by the Times.  Follow this link to read the article:

 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3621890.ece

Drivers who take driver training greatly reduce their chances of being involved in a crash, simply because they have raised awareness of the mistakes other drivers make, and are ready to deal with them, together with heightened hazard perception skills coupled with the right level of anticipation to deal effectively, and in good time, with these hazards.  And, as a very welcome added bonus, this safer style of driving also saves money!  It reduces fuel usage, which also reduces the CO2 emissions, reduces wear and tear on the vehicle and significantly reduces driver stress and associated fatigue!  In fact, most drivers who take this training save themselves at least £120pa.  If you would like further information on how you can start to make savings, please contact us now.  The Road Death game, that’s one lottery you definitely don’t want to win!!

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.

Yesterday another driver prevented me from using road space, effectively pushing me into the path of oncoming vehicles.  How and why did this happen?  Well it occurred after a set of traffic lights where there is a left turn into a Tesco store, no turning to the right, and 2 lanes marked for traffic continuing ahead.  As I approached, the lights were on red, a fairly long queue of vehicles was in the left lane, but just 3 waiting in the right-hand lane; I chose to proceed in the right.  Just after the lights the road narrows into one lane, marked with arrows for right-hand lane traffic to move into the left.  It was at this point, as I looked for my gap to move left, that the driver of the car behind accelerated to fill this gap, effectively putting me in danger.  The reaction from the female driver and her male passenger (both middle-aged) showed they believed I had committed a traffic offense by using this space to get ahead of traffic, and they were determined I should not get ahead of them, even to the extent of causing a collision!

This is the worst type of driving!  Even if my actions had been wrong, to then deliberately force another car into the path of oncoming vehicles is putting everyone around them in danger, all for the sake of ‘punishing’ another driver!

Many of you reading this will have had the same thing happen to you, and it shows the worst form of human nature, the ‘me first, my space’ culture, and it causes more traffic queues than necessary as many drivers are afraid of using the available space of the second lane for fear of being put into just such a position.  The road planners put these extra lanes in place, at enormous cost to the tax payer, to relieve traffic congestion, so please do not let those who do not understand this fact put you off. 

If you would like to learn how to use space safely and effectively, how to assist other drivers and keep yourself safe, then why not enrol on a refresher, or better still advanced, driving course with us?  Good driving is about being considerate, aware and responsible, and driving with this in mind will lead you to becoming a safe and economical driver, ‘eco-safe’, saving you money on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs.  Call us today and don’t let drivers like the one highlighted here force you to be a timid driver.

By-the-way, the correct way to deal with queues of traffic where 2 lanes merge into one, is to use the ‘zipper’ action: left vehicle proceeds, then right, then left, then right etc, just like the teeth on a zip.  Everyone moves in turn and everyone remains safe!