I was on a lesson with a pupil today who has her test coming up in a month or so. She’s a good driver, but the way her head works is her biggest obstacle. Roundabouts bring the problem right to the fore, but it isn’t just those – it can happen at junctions, crossings, anywhere.
She knows exactly what to do, but when she comes to negotiate them (sometimes) her mind just seems to freeze. Once something has gone wrong, until we can stop and effectively reset the counter then a whole cascade of other things can also go wrong. Today she came off a roundabout, immediately missed a pedestrian about to step on to a crossing, missed the next roundabout, and then missed the cars coming towards her on it (after I’d intervened). Obviously this is no good if she is going to be driving on her own at some stage, and I’m dealing with it.
But that’s not the point of this story.
After we pulled over to “reset the counter”, she told me that her dad had once told her that she was capable of seeing a path with people walking on it, but only she would be stupid enough to ignore the glaring evidence and go a different way. (I know her, and this was her dad talking to her in a fatherly way about her problem, which manifests itself in all parts of her life).
Her dad ended his lesson with this brilliant one-liner:
There’s the path. Take it.
There’s a lot of truth in those five words in the right circumstances. I plan to use them a lot!
You see, a lot of learners make the same mistake and try to conjure up complex answers to simple questions or decisions, so the choice between left or right becomes confused with other options which only they can see.
I’ve lost count of the number of pupils over the years who have tried to go, say, “straight ahead” when there is no “straight ahead”. Or who don’t move out on roundabouts for their exits because they “thought it was the next one”. And my favourite reason for not taking “the next turn on the left” (complete with me pointing and referring to the sign), that they thought I “meant another one further on”.
Driving is much simpler than that – especially on driving lessons and the driving test.