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Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop

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On 11/07/2024 02:39 pm, NY wrote:

> On 10/07/2024 12:58, AnthonyL wrote:

>> I'm coming up to 60yrs since I passed my test and I doubt that if I
>> took one this afternoon that I'd get a pass.  Changing down before
>> junctions, going sequentially up/down the gears, in gear when braking
>> to a potential standstill, hands at 10 to 2.   No doubt lots more.
> 
> I passed my test in the early 80s. Your 60 years sounded a lot, until I 
> worked out that I've been driving 43 years!

Fifty-two for me, and that at a North London test centre notorious (so 
my friends told me) for failing first time caniddates "on principle".

> When I passed my ordinary test, it was still required to change down 
> sequentially through the gears. My instructor had been a police Class 1 
> instructor before he retired, and he confessed to me once I'd passed 
> that it was sheer hell teaching all his (civilian) pupils to change down 
> sequentially, when it was the direct opposite of what he'd taught police 
> officers.
> 
> I'd been taught to steer push-pull, with my hands at 10 to 2, but I got 
> into bad habits. Then 10 years later, I decided to take my IAM advanced 
> test - as a bit of a morale-booster: something that I could do that 
> other people couldn't - and I had to a) learn how to change down 
> directly from top gear to (for example) second gear if that was the 
> correct gear once I was ready to accelerate out of the hazard, and b) 
> relearn 10 to 2 steering.
> 
> It didn't take too long to learn/relearn those things. Some time later I 
> did a night school course in making videos, and for our project we 
> needed to film a sequence where I was driving. And the guy who was the 
> director said I was driving "like a granny" so I had to cross my hands 
> and grip the wheel from the inside sometimes to make me look less po-faced.
> 
> Thirty years later, I always change sequentially, coming off the power 
> early and letting friction and air resistance start to slow the car, 
> braking progressively (gentle at first at high speed, then ever more 
> firmly as the car starts to slow, then come off the brake almost 
> completely as the car comes to rest: another skill to be learned!) and 
> changing into the correct gear once I determine whether I can keep 
> rolling forwards if nothing's coming at T junction (choose second gear) 
> or whether I need to come to a complete rest (choose first gear).
> 
> Looking at film of IAM drivers steering (eg the London to Bath in 1963 
> film https://youtu.be/Qp-Sv_lXWvU?si=I-s6OzSUS6tUMPX1&t=249) I tend to 
> use a smaller number of big 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock movements rather 
> than the larger number of smaller 10 o'clock to 8 o'clock movements 
> demonstrated in the film. Incidentally, the film is notorious for a 
> really embarrassing road-rage incident in which the "good" driver blasts 
>   his horn repeatedly and quite aggressively at a driver who is hogging 
> Lane 2 and preventing him overtaking 
> https://youtu.be/Qp-Sv_lXWvU?si=8G6CWyxhBtR7S2Cs&t=488 - I remember the 
> tuts and the sighs at an IAM branch meeting when we were shown that film.
> 
> Interesting to see at that point in the film:
> 
> - the M4 only had two lanes

The original length between the Chiswick Flyover and the little 
Maidenhead thicket of junctions was indeed planned and built with only 
two lanes per side (which explains the flyover's capacity).

There were other examples of the same short-sightedness, especially the 
M1's notorious "two lane stretch" between the A41 at Garston and the M10 
junction (A405 midway between them). The first part of the M5 from what 
was eventually J4 south to the M50 junction, was also built with only 
two lanes, as was the first motorway in the UK: M6 between A49 (Bamber 
Bridge) and the A6 north of Preston (the spur later forming the first 
part of M55). I understand that the M6 Lancaster bypass was also 
originally built with only dual two-lane carriageways, though it and the 
Preston bypass were laid out with very expansive centre reservations to 
allow for symmetrical widening. And a 2-lane stretch on M40 as well.

> - no central barrier between the carriageways

Not thought necessary!

> - the A308 junction which no longer exists; nowadays you have to go 
> slightly further, come off at J 8/9, and then go back on the A308(M) to 
> the A308 Windsor road.

That was a temporary junction? There were a few others over the years. 
One. for instance on M62 heading for Hull.

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Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop NY <me@privacy.net> - 2024-07-09 14:51 +0100
  Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop Colin Bignell <cpb@bignellREMOVETHIS.me.uk> - 2024-07-09 16:38 +0100
    Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop Nick Finnigan <nix@genie.co.uk> - 2024-07-09 16:49 +0100
    Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop nospam@please.invalid (AnthonyL) - 2024-07-10 11:58 +0000
      Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop NY <me@privacy.net> - 2024-07-11 14:39 +0100
        Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop JNugent <JNugent73@mail.com> - 2024-08-07 15:45 +0100
          Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop NY <me@privacy.net> - 2024-08-07 22:20 +0100
            Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop JNugent <JNugent73@mail.com> - 2024-08-08 00:34 +0100
          Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop Colin Bignell <cpb@bignellREMOVETHIS.me.uk> - 2024-08-08 08:41 +0100
            Re: Indicating when about to overtake a bus stopped *in the road* at a bus stop JNugent <JNugent73@mail.com> - 2024-08-08 15:34 +0100

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