ADUK Archive

I have the pleasure of occasionally taking a friend out driving who is currently pretty close to test standard. I have offered to accompany on drives after test pass, specifically to encounter particular road layouts and, where possible, weather conditions. I was wondering of the general opinion on things to include for new drivers. My list goes something like this:

1. Weather/environment
Night & dusk
Rain/sleet/snow
Fresh/compacted snow, ice
High winds
Low angle sun, particularly if wet

2. Roads
Motorways, especially Glasgow's somewhat unique right-hand exits and merges
Country roads, as wide a range as possible from broad to narrow, twisty and straight
Urban environments, one-way systems
Multi-storey car parks
Fast food drive through (nice low speed manoeuvring)
Fords/bridges

Is this too sadistic and/or am I missing anything?

Weather:
Fog.

Roads:
Really steep hills.
Narrow country lanes with limited passing places, where there is a likelihood of needing to reverse considerable distance.
Toll booths.
Tunnels.

Other:
Track day.

Great you are willing to give up the time to develop some else's driving - I wish more would do the same.

You're doing an extended 'Pass Plus' by the sound of it. Once your friend has been through your list, get them to sign up on an IAM or ROSPA advanced course.

Get them to tell you what they think makes a good driver and what they need help with to achieve that.

Give them scenarios and get them thinking about how they'd cope...e.g. they are tired but need to get home, they have noisy, excitable friends in the car after a night out, they have a persistent tailgater etc.

Thanks for the thoughts, I'll see if I can fit them all in.

Hopefully I'm passing the message that the L-test is but a step in the process. Although I haven't been out as much as I'd hoped, it is an eye opening experience into the world of ADIs - you must have nerves of steel! That said, I was a lot more calm about it than I expected and it is satisfying to be able to pass on some of the insights of experience.

It occurred to me during a recent moment of sleeplessness that really what I was describing was a series of each of the three hazard types, according to roadcraft - so to re-arrange the list (added a couple):

-- Static --
Motorways, especially Glasgow's somewhat unique right-hand exits and merges
Country roads, as wide a range as possible from broad to narrow, twisty and straight
Urban environments, one-way systems
Multi-storey car parks
Fast food drive through (nice low speed manoeuvring)
Fords/bridges
Really steep hills
Narrow country lanes with limited passing places, where there is a likelihood of needing to reverse considerable distance.
Toll booths.
Tunnels

-- Dynamic --
Emergency vehicles
Rush hour traffic

-- Environmental --
Night & dusk
Rain/sleet/snow
Fresh/compacted snow, ice
High winds
Low angle sun, particularly if wet
Fog

Note that I'm not particularly expecting a reply to this, I'm just posting to collect my thoughts and highlight the link to roadcraft. Also because I can practically see the tumble weed across my screen when Iog on to ADUK these days - where is everyone?

I'd add into your list:
Examine (try it) and reflect on
- how being late or lost affects driving, manoeuvring
- how distracting music, radio, SatNav, phone ... can be
- what stops us seeing everything there is to be seen
- how can we enhance our anticipation skills
- how can we bag more space and time, what happens when we don't.
Then:
- how can we avoid getting involved in the 3 most common crash scenarios