Motorway Challenge

[Tim Hunt]

For the keen driver any time at the wheel will provide opportunities further to refine technique, thereby affording pleasure. Long motorway journeys, however, can be somewhat monotonous since the major potential dangers from oncoming or crossing traffic are (hopefully!) absent making overtaking a doddle, there are no roundabouts to negotiate, except for some when entering or leaving the motorway and you will find few opportunities to apply the limit point technique to assist cornering.

I can, though, suggest a ploy to add interest to a lengthy motorway trip. As you join a motorway AWARD yourself 100 points. Each time you touch the brake pedal (unless of course forced to do so by traffic coming to a stop or to avoid an unforseeable emergency) DEDUCT one point. No cheating with the parking brake! When changing lane, each time you run over cat's eyes with a front tyre rather than straddling them DEDUCT one point. Each time you are following another vehicle in your lane and find yourself breaking the two-second rule (four-second in the wet) DEDUCT one point. As you pass the FIRST sign imposing a reduced maximum speed limit DEDUCT one point for each mph you are travelling over that limit. I find these stretches of motorway wonderful places to watch the world go by!
Try this again the next time you travel the same section of motorway and seek to retain more of your 100 points.

Tim

[martine]

Hi Tim and Welcome.

You might like to post a little more about yourself here:
http://www.advanced-driving.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=672

[Gareth]

Martin - see here. Busy day?

[Tim Hunt]

Thanks Gareth. It's OK Martin, my memory is also not what it used to be. I have just returned from a long Pacific cruise with intermittent and rather expensive Internet access, accounting for my ten week silence.

Tim

[zadocbrown]

Or maybe a better challenge would be to keep your mind on the actual driving task?

[Tim Hunt]

Thanks for that. I had anticipated a response along those lines although I confess that I had expected it sooner! I submit that my ploy uses minimal additional brain capacity, certainly less than required for a conversation with a passenger or a game of 'I Spy' with children in the back seat. (That's hypothetical, I am without issue).

Our acceleration sense, perception and anticipation skills are continuously deployed and I only suggest a simple bit of mental arithmetic (subtraction) in response to any slippage in the standards we set. After all, are we not regularly applying the two- (or four-) second rule (RC p75) as a matter of habit anyway. I certainly do.

Tim

[Tim Hunt]

Sorry I should have said "slippage from the standards we set".

Tim

[martine]

Thanks Gareth. It's OK Martin, my memory is also not what it used to be. I have just returned from a long Pacific cruise with intermittent and rather expensive Internet access, accounting for my ten week silence.

Tim

- that's weird I could have sworn your number of posts was showing as 1 which is why I assumed you were a newbie. Sorry!

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

Surely introducing themselves should be optional for the individual, anyway, not something that's rigorously "policed"?

[jameslb101]

Surely introducing themselves should be optional for the individual, anyway, not something that's rigorously "policed"?

I think Martin was merely encouraging him rather than anything more.