waremark wrote:Mr Insanity. I am interested to know how you have reached such well developed ideas about the way you will drive. I think it is unusual for pre-drivers to recognise the failings in the driving of their parents. Have you ever been driven by someone whose driving you admire, and perhaps would want to emulate?
I know it's unusual. Certainly, more or less everyone else at my school who has reached driving age, or approaching, or even passed certainly don't put the level of thinking into the whole "driving" experience that I do.
I honestly cannot recall a specific journey that has stood out in my mind, but I do recall having a driver to drive me to and from school (was a special boarding school for the deaf), and he would often drive fantastically smoothly, and yet always managed very brisk progress (Especially on the motorways!
) I think that's the standard I'll always aspire to, and often find my parents failing to reach those standards.
As an aside, if (hopefully when) you come driving with some of us, how easy will we find it to communicate with you about what either we or you are doing? You mentioned a while ago that your driving instructor will be someone with experience of teaching deaf students. Do you know what techniques are used?
I'll say that there won't be many issues on a one-to-one basis, when I'm able to maximise my focus on lipreading the person I'm talking to.
The instructor I've had for my under-17 lessons would do the majority of discussion with me whilst the car was stationary, and while I was on the move, we'd discussed and decided on a bunch of basic gestures that would communicate commands to me with no requirement for any actual speaking. But generally, I'd say I'm a pretty easy deaf person to communicate to, as I'm always willing to figure out ways of communication that is effective for both parties included in the conversation, whereas some of my deaf peers are a tad more stubborn about how they'll talk to people.
I don't know about what techniques are used by the instructor himself, but a few people learning with him from my school say they have no problems whatsoever with him, so I'm reasonably confident about him.
Apologies for that to anyone wanting to read about night driving. Back on topic, it occurs to me that situations where you can have thoughtful discussions on whether dipped or main beam are appropriate probably have a lot in common with situations where we can debate whether or not it is helpful to indicate - if you are thinking about it at all, you are already an advanced driver, and there is probably no right or wrong answer.
There is a wrong answer in the situation regarding main beams.
If they're dazzling someone for longer than acceptable, then they're a problem.
Same with indicators, if they're likely to confuse, then there's a problem.
But indeed, the indicating situation, my under-17 instructor informed me that every time you indicate unnecessarily, it's deemed a minor fault on the test, which did lead me to wondering how that is fair.
Because, although I accept these circumstances may be rare, but being on the driver's side, you do have a different perspective to the examiner, which may mean you might see something the examiner didn't, and that caused you to signal because you deemed it necessary, but because the examiner didn't see the thing, they might deem your indication unnecessary, and thus, mark it as a minor fault.
