So today went well, I am starting the cement the moving off procedure in my head now and I got a bit more comfortable breaking (which is always good when moving at anything above stopped). I edited the previous post with corrections from the previous day. Most notably I forgot about checking the position of the mirrors before putting my seat belt on and the hand brake should be the second thing to check after getting in the car.

So on to stopping! The technique it seems is to be able to decouple your feet from each other, I don’t think I do anything else that requires me to use my feet independently so it is a little difficult. The exact procedure from memory goes as follows:

  • Take your foot off the accelerator, this seems fairly obvious but is quite important really.
  • Squeeze the foot brake very gently, this may not even be necessary if you are on an inclining hill as gravity may well counteract the drive provided by the clutch.
  • Steer into where you want to park, by turning the steering wheel to the left
  • Once the front of the car is in position, steer the back in by turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction - straightening up the vehicle to the kerb.
  • Finally straighten the front wheels by returning steering wheel to the “12 o’clock” position.
  • Push the clutch right down to the floor (this is where I tend to press the foot brake down to the floor too).
  • Push the foot brake more so that you come to a total stop, again this may not be required depending on the inclination or of the hill, the reverse is true too, more brake may be required if you are going down hill.
  • Put the hand brake on.
  • Return the gear stick to neutral.

As I said I have been having some problems decoupling my feet, I seem to be getting there though. All in all a very positive lesson.