Archive for the ‘Diary’ Category
Monday, October 13th, 2008
Today was another funny driving lesson my feet weren’t quite right, and I kept doing silly things made a bit of a mess of turning round in the road and didn’t get reversing round a corner quite right. One of the things I was doing particularly wrong was putting the clutch down while breaking, for some reason I have it stuck in my head that clutch goes down when slowing down, rather than just before I come to a stop. Kev got me too take my foot of clutch pedal when driving and rest it on the side (which has done wonders for my ankles) it also delays me putting the clutch down.
The second thing I had problems with today was again braking, I was a little heavy on the brake which probably comes down to anticipation or not as my case is.
I learn’t something about roundabouts though, if I scan round the roundabout in a clockwise direction when approaching/stopped at the roundabout I check the most important thing last, i.e. traffic from the right.
There were many more little things, Kev seems to think that after the current block of lessons are up I probably won’t need another full block before I am ready to take my test. Scary stuff.
Posted in Diary, Driving | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
So, today went much better than last week. We did quite a nice loop of the area I am contemplating taking a GPS with me next time and leaving it logging on the back seat so that I actually know where I have actually been. Maybe I will do that when I have passed my test, could be a little distracting if it started beeping at me.
I got two major things from my lesson today; first being that after last week driving isn’t that bad after all, the second is that speed limit signs should be seen on both sides of the road like a gate.
The above example is taken from the A259 (actually it is flipped along the horizontal axis for the sake of clarity) moving towards Peacehaven in a 40 zone, passing a side road that is national speed limit before moving into a 30 zone.
What I did was see the national speed limit signs and speed up, in my head I had seen the signs but not really thought about it too careful, what I need to remember is speed limits are like gates you have to pass through them for them to take effect, i.e. if I had been turning left up the side road I would have passed through the national speed limit gates.
Another lesson next Monday.
Posted in Diary, Driving | No Comments »
Thursday, September 18th, 2008
Had my first ever evening driving lesson this evening, Kev and I went to Seaford and back again over the course of the lesson, using some national speed limit single carriageways and some town driving.
Had a slightly hairy moment when I decided to change lanes while going round a roundabout, actually scratch the “slightly hairy”; it was down right dangerous. My mistake was; I had this image in my mind that if you are going straight on at a roundabout you go round the out side… what I had not got straight in my head was that if you are in the right hand lane stay in the right hand lane, all comes down to Mirror-Signal-Manovure.
I messed up turning round in the road and had to do it in four points rather than three, which was no big deal really it was slightly frustrating.
A huge upside was that I had not forgotten as much as I expected to, I spent some time revising from what I have posted up here - Really helped. So fellow learner drivers practice “stealth revision”:
- Do your lesson
- Write down what you learned
- Next day… read through what you wrote down, correct as required
- Day before your next lesson (or after a week which ever comes sooner) read through your write up again
- If possible read through it again just before your lesson to keep it in your head
Kev is more than happy to read through what I have written, and I am sure your ADI will be equally as happy. I check back on my notes when ever I have a free minute on the bus. It is stealth because it dosn’t feel like revision!
Posted in Diary, Driving | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Breaking my streak of 11 blog posts on the day of my driving lesson… I had a driving lesson yesterday. Strangely enough I feel that my driving is getting worse, I don’t think it actually is getting any worse I am just getting more confident and trying to do more things at once, at which point Kev steps in (literally) with the foot break.
Interesting experience today as we were driving round in the pouring rain, it was quite disturbing at first as the windscreen wipers were distracting, however once I got over that I was more or less ignoring them. The main issue I had was large blobs of rain obscuring entire cars, again once I got use to checking a bit more carefully I got over that too.
Kev went through reverse parking today which was actually easier than I expected, perhaps because I had been doing amazingly boring task of “paper work” before my lesson today so my brain was ready to learn something. The essence of the manoeuvre is as follows, please remember that this may be TOTALLY INCORRECT and much of it will only apply to the particular model of car I am driving:
- Start about a meter beyond the car you are going to park opposite (i.e. with the front of the car facing).
- Do the checks from your blind spot round to the rear window.
- Reverse until the car disappears behind the head-rest of the car (this bit may not work unless you are in Kev’s car!).
- Check your blind spot.
- Do one whole turn to the left (i.e. towards the kerb).
- Once the wheel arch starts to obscure the kerb, turn the wheel two whole turns to the right.
- Once the car is parallel with the road straighten up.
At this point you should be there. I was stopping between each step to figure out what I was doing next, although it could be done without stopping I suppose.
Posted in Diary, Driving | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
Had quite a break between lessons this time, found it much harder to get into the frame of mind after an 8 day break, came back quickly enough. Kev has been trying to get me talking through what I am doing to improve my concentration and awareness of the situation, I am still struggling to get junctions and roundabout quite right, I still tend to come up to the junction to fast not giving myself enough time to get into position, change gear down and look.
It is helpful talking may way through the things I find harder, because I often answer my own questions, or at least know where I am going wrong when I say it. We spent some time turning round in the road (three point turns, although they can be done in more than three) looking at hazards and improveing the frequency that I check mirrors.
Posted in Diary, Driving | No Comments »
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Catherine and I put on a barbecue this weekend, in theory it was a housewarming party, however we have been here for 16 months - so not really a housewarming. One of the things that we didn’t have to put any effort into was the music, and that was down to something called Grooveshark Lite.
Groveshark is a Florida start up company who’s business model is basically to allow users to upload their music collection to Groveshark’s servers, registered users can download the music (at a price), of the said price a cut goes to the artist, a cut to the person who uploaded the music and presumably the rest goes to Groveshark.
The lite service allows you to stream music for free from the Groveshark library without even registering, in addition there is an auto play feature that is similar to Pandora which picks music based upon your tastes, which you identify by rating each track as a happy face or a sad face.
The best thing about using Grooveshark for the music is once a couple of people had been shown how to use it all of our guests got to choose the music, someone would come along and queue up a couple of tracks someone else would come along and rate some of the tracks, when the track listing ran out Groveshark guessed pretty well.
As far as I can tell it is a legal service, as they are sharing out the profits from downloads to artists, ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch seem to suggest that it is legal too. The fact it is in Florida and has not been shutdown by the RIAA is also a good sign.
In summary, if you have a party give Groveshark and your guests the job of picking the music, you won’t be disappointed.
Posted in Diary, Things You Find | No Comments »
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
I spent some selfish time on Tuesday watching Donnie Darko. I wasn’t giving the film my full attention so I had to watch it again, in between I spent some time on the website and reading the FAQ both of which are well worth going through, however they are full of spoilers, so best to watch the film first.
Anyway, watching the film re-kindled my love of watching films with a complex plot, films like WALL-E, The Dark Knight and Iron Man are great to watch, however you hardly leave the cinema wondering what just happened… in a good way. It is a fine balance between creating a film that totally confuses, and makes you think.
The one thing that has stuck out from talking to people about it is that it doesn’t make much sense if you look at it in linear time, what we watch in the film is the final iteration. I won’t say much more as I am sure there are people who haven’t seen it before.
The final upshot of watching spending selfish time is I went on the hunt for other things to watch in the evenings, these are three of the best CGI Animated Shorts I have seen over the past few days, sorry about the YouTube quality, it is the best I could find:
Enjoy and post your favourites in the comments as and when you come across them.
Edit
Seen this one before but couldn’t find it untill now, not sure it beats the above it is a great story however.
Posted in Diary, Things You Find | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
20 hours of driving lessons completed now, and Kev and I took the time to go through the Driver’s Record that the Driving Standards Agency provides people who book a theory test for the first time. The Driver’s Record is broken down into twenty driving skills and four other skills related to car ownership. You can read more about the Driver’s Record on direct.gov.
Each of the 20 driving skills are rated between 1 and 5, where 1 is Introduced and 5 is independent without prompts from the driving instructor. In total I have one of the skills at level 5, three at level 4, twelve at level 3 none at level 2, two at level 1 and there are two that I have not looked at yet (emergency stops and parking). I am pleased with the progress I have made although I expect I will need another 40 hours of lessons before I will be close to being able to take my practical test.
Onto the actual content of the lesson, we spent some more time reversing round corners which along with turning round in the road, I find quite difficult. We also covered some more roundabouts and junctions both of which I am improving on, but still find difficult.
Kev also taught me a technique for moving off faster, essentially it is moving from the step by step approach to moving off to being about to prepare to move off quickly. Here is the process I have been using up until now, taken from the safely stopped position (i.e. handbrake on and in neutral):
- push the clutch down
- change into first gear
- give the engine a bit of gas
- bring the clutch up to biting point
- put more gas on to get the revs back up
- check the internal mirror, right door mirror and right blind spot, only move on to the next step if it is safe.
- take the hand brake off
- keep feet in the same place until moving
- come off the clutch and add more gas until up to speed
The technique Kev taught me today was to combine 3, 4 and 5 with a single movement to bring the clutch up to biting point and the gas down to provide sufficient power from the engine. It was good fun, I don’t think I have got it yet but I am improving.
Unfortunately I haven’t got a lesson until next Wednesday, I know how learners feel now if they have to wait a week between each lesson.
Posted in Diary, Driving | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 15th, 2008
Well roundabouts went well today, I am still not anywhere near confident on them but I was bringing my speed down most of the time. I must admit I am itching to get out in a car again to practice more. I will have to wait as my two weeks of regular lessons have come to an end, could only book one lesson next week as Kev is off to Rivercamp on Friday, and has lessons the rest of the week.
So anyway, enough lamenting about driving lessons. Kev introduced reversing round corners to me, which I found similar to turning round in the road, in terms of things to think about. Certainly skills I learnt in turning round in the road helped, particularly controlling the car with the clutch and foot brake.
On the basis I have only done this twice, this may be wrong… very wrong. Essentially this is another way turn the car round so that it is pointing in the opposite direction. After doing the five point check - right blind spot, right door mirror, front windscreen, left door mirror and rear window - I reverse round the corner keeping the kerb an equal distance from the car all the way round, Once straightened up round the corner reverse the car into a parked position.
Posted in Diary, Driving | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
If you are following me on Twitter you will have seen that Peacehaven was very wet this morning, of course by the time I have left my basement office it was bright sunshine. I was glad of it as we went off towards Shoreham and then onto the A27 to head back towards Newhaven. It seems that driving fast and overtaking comes fairly easily to me, perhaps being on my bike has provided me with practical practice.
Roundabouts unfortunately don’t come so easily to me, at the moment there is too much to think about. For some reason I struggle with slowing down in time, changing gear, seeing what is coming round and getting the indicators properly. Practice I feel will be the order of the next few lessons.
So anyway here are some “pretty pictures” of roundabouts and what I have in my head with regards to what to do with them. As always this is not intended to be instructional, and it may well be inaccurate, I have had to make corrections to several of my previous posts.
Priority on Roundabouts
I made the sudden realization when in the car today that roundabouts are circular one way streets, traffic will only be coming from the right! As an analogy it is not very useful, I thought it was quite amusing.
In this diagram the red car is me, I will try and describe what the other cars are there for as I go along.
On roundabouts you must give way to cars already on the roundabout (in the picture the yellow car). Assuming that the green and purple cars moved off at the same time as me at the same speed (which should be slow, i.e. 10mph), then the three of us would move round the roundabout without affecting each other.
Again this was not something I had thought about before, but roundabouts allow traffic at intersections to split, merge and continue very quickly.
Turning left at a Roundabout
On the approach to the roundabout first thing I need to remember is to slow down to 10mph or below (I will mention this several times). This will allow for the maximum amount of time to assess the situation.
Essentially the roundabout is treated in the same way as a T-Junction on a one way street. On the approach to the junction I need to use the Mirror-Signal-Manoeuvre-Position-Speed-Look procedure.
So on the approach, I need to check the left hand mirror then signal to the left, the manoeuvre comprises of: position, that is being in the correct lane and being in position to make the turn, speed, below 10mph and in the correct gear - second gear if moving or first gear if stopped.
Once the way is clear move round the outside of the roundabout and out of the first exit.
Going straight ahead at a Roundabout
This section used to be titled “Going straight over a Roundabout”, Kev since mentioned that wasn’t the way to describe it, however I must point out that the Police and local council don’t take kindly to driving over roundabouts… it tends to damage the floral displays.
Again going straight over requires the use of the MSM-PSL procedure, however in this instance you do not indicate until you have passed the first exit. This prevents following vehicles from expecting you to turn left onto the first exit.
It is important to note that the outside edge of the roundabout should be followed as if you use the inner lane of the roundabout you are cutting up the drivers turning right.
Going right at a Roundabout
MSM-PSL procedure as expected; So first check the internal and left mirror signal to the right, positioning myself to turn onto the roundabout, if the way is clear I would continue or move off onto the roundabout.
Unlike the previous examples I would use the inner lane of the roundabout continue to indicate right until I pass the exit before the exit I wish to take, at this point I apply the MSM-PSL procedure to move off the roundabout on the exit I wish to take.
Summary
As I mentioned, I find roundabouts very difficult, I never really got them when I was on a bike, as it felt like you were putting yourself in the middle of the traffic on a vehicle that appears to make you invisible.
I am sure that I will spend more time practicing roundabouts, and over the course of the next lessons I am sure I will be able to update everyone on my progress. Still enjoying it all, although today was particuarly tireing.
Posted in Diary, Driving | No Comments »
