Having driving lessons!

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I have to admire anyone who can drive a tractor! I had a go in a friend's Landrover years ago. I'd never driven anything bigger than a smallish car. Found it to be challenging. Parked about a metre away from the kerb!

I was about 18-20 YO and my cousin asked if I wanted to take the fully loaded with paper 18 wheeler around the parking lot. So, yes, scary faced with double-shifts to get in a gear and a double shift to get out. Brake pedals that look like accelerators and who knows how may gears (18 think) with two shift levers.

A riding lawnmower, go-cart and mini-bike were my smallest things at my grandparents farm.

I was about 17 and was faced with driving a pick-up truck just to do some brush cleaning out on a friend of my paren;t property, I was also painting the spilt rail fence on what was a 5 acre horse farm. The main job was painting. The secondary job was cleaning out the brush, so I could paint. There's no shift pattern for a "three -on-the-tree, so I had to figure out where the gears were.

Maybe a small walk behind snow-thrower counts.

Never drove a tractor, Pappy was too protective. But it had 3 brake pedals. One for each drive wheel and one for both. The starter button was an old foot mounted headlight dimmer switch.

It's amazing how you "associate" things that "look like an accelerator" as an accelerator, but it was the brake. Headlight dimming switches were associted with headlight dimming and not engaging the starter.

LG: Should have bartered - teach the teach how to drive a tractor for your car driving lessons?

EDIT: Boldface

 

[alec_t]

scary faced with double-shits to get in a gear

Hope you carried plenty of spare underwear in the cab .

 

[large_ghostman]

Well i think i am giving up with this instructor, its not her exactly but the car. had another lesson, i live on the A75 main road, the section I live on is not that far from a port. It has a long (4 mile) stretch thats a steady uphill climb, TBH it dosnt look much of a hill until you try and walk up it! Its such a steady gradient you dont notice in a normal car.
It is also the only section in one direction that has a 2 mile passing lane, then its back to single lane. So heading into town in the Corsa and I see a lorry a little way behind us..

I said to her We got the dual carriageway coming up, is it ok if I slow down here (i was doing 45), that way the lorry will catch up and overtake before the end of the dual bit. the lorries really tank it up that section of road, I dont mind doing 60 but its a driving lesson and speed camera vans pop up all over the place there. So I figured I would slow it down so the lorry got ahead and I would have ten mins less time driving in town (hate town driving).
She tells me to increase speed to 50, which I do knowing full well the lorry will catch up but not be able to overtake, its a bit unfair as most are rushing to get the ferries to cross to Ireland. But I do as she says, we get 1/4 mile from the dual bit and lorry is pretty close by now, he must be flat out and fairly light as he is gaining pretty quickly.

So as we hit the dual section he pulls out to overtake me!! She says go a bit faster you dont want to be stuck behind a lorry all way into town, so I take it out of 5th (doing around 50) and push the accelerator to the carpet................and wait, the lorry is getting side by side with me, so i got a choice, if i get ahead now then alls fair, if i do it in a bit then i risk undertaking him.

The spedo and clock I swear have changed places in the Corsa, The speedo moves up like a minuet hand on a clock!! So I use my initiative and drop it to third.............except i miss and hit first! OUCH . So I give up and go back to 45MPH in 5th and drive like a granny into town. Where I spent the next 30 mins driving 2 miles in solid traffic, on what i assume was old people suicide day crossing the road. Lesson was sort of OK, but that car is crap. I dont understand why though, my mums mate has one and let me take it out the other night, it drives great!

Its a fair bit quicker than my instructors but same engine size, only difference being my instructors is petrol and this was a diesel. Might have found a way around the insurance problem, looks like if we get fleet insurance i can be named for around £1,500 a year. But it would cover me for 10K miles in the Land Rover a year.

 

[tcmtech]

If it makes you feel better it took me three tries to pass my first driving test and I had already been driving vehicles around the farm and country side for 3+ years at that point!

First run I had to make a left hand turn at a four way traffic light. My light went green and I started to turn then some idiot ran the red in front of me and damn near hit us then proceeded to pull up and cuss me out for bad driving. Not my fault, and the instructor admitted it, but still an automatic fail for not paying closer attention to traffic around me.

Second time I got docked too many points for speeding and vehicle maintenance violations because the car I was driving was locked into high idle so it wouldn't die because it ran like crap and stalled then would not start well otherwise. Couldn't ride the brakes to keep it under 25 MPH in the residential areas without getting docked points but if I didn't I got docked points for speeding even without touching the gas pedal.

Third time I nailed it with no memorable points docks!

Years later when I stepped up to my Class B Commercial license I nailed it too, but a few years later took two tries to go up to the full Class A I have now because the manager for the company I worked for that helped me get my license upgrade set me up with a crap truck that couldn't pass inspection plus had questionable exhaust stacks that stuck out so far that the trailer was not fully visible in the mirrors making backing up accurately for the test impossible. (he knew and everyone in the company knew that was a crap rig to do the driving tests with.)

Second time I took the test I snuck out with one of the good trucks and nailed the test without even having to do half of it because the gal who was my tester that day knew me for years and knew I was a good experienced truck driver anyway from my years of farming related truck driving, which in our state is CDL exempt.

 

[JimB]

i think i am giving up with this instructor, its not her exactly but the car

as we hit the dual section he pulls out to overtake me!! She says go a bit faster you dont want to be stuck behind a lorry all way into town,

Never mind the car, comments like that are a good enough reason to dump her.
Tricks like that come into the category of "Lack of consideration for other road users"

its a bit unfair as most are rushing to get the ferries to cross to Ireland.

Exactly, you get the idea, the guy driving the lorry is at work trying to make a crust, he has already had enough hassle on his journey so far, he does not want some (idiot) learner driver adding to his problems.

Also consider, what would happen if while you were in front of this anxious lorry driver who has a bad case of "press-on-itist" and you have to stand on the brakes for some reason.
Been there, done that, the car (a poxy Hyundai) ended up a foot or so shorter, Mrs JimB and I ended up on the back seat as the front seats broke.
And the lorry? You could hardly tell the difference, just a few scratches.
What a way to end the holiday (Costa del Sol).

JimB

 

[GromTag]

Little Ghostman, Driving operators judgement over instructors compromise.

A common ploy to usually determine the safety adequacy of the vehicle operator.

Example, -Instructor- greetings, I would like for you to drive us off of this cliff today straight down into the 1200 foot ravine... -driver- no! your out of your...... currently displaced mind!

Or just say that's just not safe and clearly the vehicle would not have enough power to accomplish that feat any way plus the tonnage difference vs gravity. Or in the lorry as per case.

 

[GromTag]

Or she really does have some issues...

 

[kubeek]

LG, you are the driver, you should decide what is safe and what is not, and not listen to your passengers saying go faster you can make it.
If you have it the same as we do, then the instructor has only brakes and clutch pedals, not gas, and I doubt making you go faster is in any way in her powers. If you don´t think its ok not letting the lorry pass you, then you should let it pass.

 

[large_ghostman]

Jim is right, in my mums car things are different, she dosnt go out with me much in the car though. Mostly because I dont like driving with my 8 year old sister in the car! I have done that twice, each time i dread passing one her mates house 'stop the car stop the car'!! so and so is in blah blah....

Plus while I think I am fairly good at driving, I have little road experience. Sure I can do most things in a tractor and do it well, I can drive a Land Rover over the toughest terrain with the best of them. But that aint traffic, I dont like town driving as to me it seems a place people go to crash on purpose. From what I seen in town I discovered the mirror in the middle of the windscreen is actually designed for putting make on.
Silly me I thought it was to look behind you! I tried to alter my lesson time because of the ferrie time table, the road is really busy with lorries about an hour or two before the ferry time, you can tell the late ones as they really hammer it. TBH I agree with Jim here, they got a job to do and they got a fixed time window. They dont need a slow learner in front and I dont need a stressed 38ton load of death in a rush behind me. Funny thing is I drive a 7 ton fixed bed on an industrial estate near us, its way better than driving a car.

Lessons are really expensive, so i will look for another instructor. And your correct about dual control, its break and clutch they got control of, really really annoys me though. I got a thing about slipping clutches, there is zero need to do it except in special cases, hill starts dont need the clutch slipped if you can drive! my instructor slips it alot and it annoys the hell out of me.

 

[large_ghostman]

Forgot..
My Girl friends dad is a driving examiner, he has been out with me twice, he thinks my control etc is great, but i lack road experience. Which is a bit obvious, he also notes i cross my hands during 3 point turns and one hand on when when i reverse.
Although at home I reversed the landy and trailer with him in the car, using just the mirrors. He says great for a farm but absolutely zero use out in a town............I guess he has never picked bales up at a agricultural supplies with a trailer then . He has driven the Tractor, which was really funny to watch. I got him to plough two furrows last week. It took way too long and looked like a map of the river Thames!
He got stuck in the wet part of the field, once I stopped laughing i pointed to 4 wheel drive and Diff lock 'look its a magic button for tractor noobs to get out of mud'.

 

[tcmtech]

Although at home I reversed the landy and trailer with him in the car, using just the mirrors. He says great for a farm but absolutely zero use out in a town.

Typical city people mentality. All farm driving is applicable in town. Especially the rules of pulling trailers or backing up in general when there.

I can't count how many time in my life I have been in town with one of my trailer and had some city half-wit nearly rear end the trailer simply because they apparently felt that they needed to take the normal 'stop 5 veet behind my bumper at a light' stance despite there already being 20+ feet of trailer occupying that space.

BTW, as with you I grew up doing so much rural off road driving that for a time in town and high speed highway driving was the problem for me. When I first started driving truck in the oil field I could take a 80,000+ pound rig down any prairie trail and across the worst muddy fields you can imagine without a second thought but taking one out on a highway and going over 40 MPH was scary to me.

 

[GromTag]

Too many seem to observe larger objects in travel on the highway not just as an keeping an eye on it more towards a reliant of using it as an makeshift assistant during driving.

5 Lane section of I-77 heading towards Statesville with a long exit lane, one small metallic blue Reno was right on a rigs trailer beams, had a cell phone in right hand, a laptop in the lap and with no hands on the wheel. As the road curves a bit left the sudden reaction of realizing this and grabbing the wheel hard left to return behind the Rig, eventually the Rig just slammed on the brakes tracking smoke and what a sound. Being in the left most lane observing this with little to do about it, even the cars up front of all this hit their brakes.

A quick check ahead showed no reason for this, and dodging around vehicles was not an enjoyable task. That incident caused over a quarter mile jam up. Truck driver must have gotten frustrated about the jabbing car under the rear end. And what also is an interesting trait, a sudden incline of people on their phones whilst still in travel to call in about the Reno doing what is was doing.

And they all started to pack up during the point of calling in about the Reno whilst all were getting closer to the Rig and each other.. Now that was just intelligent! If they were even calling in about the car at all instead of to a friend or family member instead of any Local or State.

 

[tcmtech]

eventually the Rig just slammed on the brakes tracking smoke and what a sound. Being in the left most lane observing this with little to do about it, even the cars up front of all this hit their brakes.

A quick check ahead showed no reason for this, and dodging around vehicles was not an enjoyable task. That incident caused over a quarter mile jam up. Truck driver must have gotten frustrated about the jabbing car under the rear end.

Yep. Tailgating is the fastest way to pissoff a truck driver and get in a collision your vehicle won't win that's going to be your own fault.

big trucks can stop surprisingly fast if they have to and if you're so close to their rear end you can't see the driver in the mirrors you have zero chance of knowing why he did what he did.

I was very tempted to do that to one of the guys I worked with during sugar beet harvest the other week. He's one of those high strung ADD types who never pays attention to anything other that how everyone else should be going faster even when they are who is obeying the speed limit and general good driving conduct rules.

The only reason I didn't was because I respect the property of the people I drive truck for. Had it been my own truck I would have happily put his truck, and likely CDL, out of commission and collected nice big insurance check from him for it just to get one more moron like him off the road for the sake and safety of everyone else.

It might not sound nice but I have come to learn that people like him never learn from friendly advice. Cold hard major financial and life setback at their own fault and expense is all they seem to learn from and some are still slow to learn form that.

 

[throbscottle]

I came home from about my 10th lesson with my first instructor, burst into tears and swore I would never drive again! I was frustrated and confused. Yet my friend who had recommended this instructor also passed his test with her. It all comes down to communication styles I reckon.

A few years later after moving to live on my own I started taking lessons again, my instructor left the company and I had another one, they were both really good, then another move and no more lessons for a few years, then I started again and my last instructor got me through the test. It was quite a few years between passing and actually driving again, I had this really strange moment of having to remember what I was supposed to do having got into this old car I'd just bought, in a strange town, setting off and hoping it would all come back to me. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic and I was on the motorway before long.

So try as many instructors as you need to!

I think it helped a lot that I'd been a bit of a hardcore cyclist for years so had gained a lot of road sense from that.

Now I'm just looking forward to LG causing an automotive revolution with some great invention...
That and being able to afford a chauffeur.