What did you 'find out' about cars/driving long after you passed your test?

Bennifred

I found out that it doesn't matter how good and safe a driver you are, it's better to assume that every other road user is an idiot and doesn't understand that the rules are there for a reason........:mad:

forgotmyname

TrickyWicky wrote: »

I thought that you could start to speed up once you were in the bend? Likewise I thought you could take your foot off the gas but just avoid using the brakes?

I know I did the latter once on a bend coming off a motorway.. slip road had no warnings of a tight bend, there's me doing 60 along the slip road and suddenly realised it was a real tight one. Took my foot off the gas and just hoped for the best. Needless to say I made it

Accelerating is OK. Its when you approach a corner unexpected or doing 70mph on a roundabout.
Lift off and it spins. Old mini that was.


Aquaplaning..OUCH.. I actually witnessed this happen and it didnt end well.
Car overtook me and hit a large patch of standing water. Spun to the left then shot across the central reservation and hit a car going the other way.

2 lads died and a couple more in hospital. The cars were a total mess.

goonarmy

How to drive an auto as i have a manual liscence

Phoebechandler

National speed limits vary between different types of vehicle. As a lorry driver I'm fed up of cars piping and flashing there lights at me for only doing 40mph on single carriage ways. It's 60 mph for a car but only 40 mph for me!!!!.

forgotmyname

I tried sticking to 40mph in a truck some time back.

A49 from Shrewsbury to Ludlow. The queue behind was massive. I had some twit in a steel lorry pulling out to look to overtake so many times it was utterly dangerous.

He should have been doing 40mph also. And with calibrated speedo's i knew my speed was accurate.

Andy_L

goonarmy wrote: »

How to drive an auto as i have a manual liscence

1st time i drove auto was a hire car in the states. Column shift just to add to the fun and, where the clutch pedal would be, a foot operated parking brake. Hours of fun driving up to a junction and trying to change down with the window winder and locking up the rear wheels by pressing the "clutch"

robatwork

Not braking in the snow (or if I must, baby pushes on the brake).

Also that a locking wheel nut in the dark actually looks the same as a normal wheel nut. Only it just spins round and round....until you find the special key to release it. I always knew I had locking wheel nuts but never paid much attention and assumed they looked very different to normal nuts.

skivenov

That a car licence acquired in 2000 doesn't allow you to drive a 7.5 tonner.

I learnt this after teaching myself to drive one and spending 2 years of driving 7.5T's all over Britain at the weekend :embarasse

Uxb

WTFH wrote: »

5. It's mirror, then signal, then manoeuvre - in that order, and not leaving bits out.

On no, you need an extra one
its mirror, signal, then check the mirror again for the nutjob overtaking you, only then is it safe to manoeuvre.

AdrianC

paddedjohn wrote: »

I passed my test many many years ago and only found out a couple of weeks ago (speed awareness course) that a duel carriageway is any road with a physical barrier between the lanes of trafic, it can even be single lane in each direction. Who knew eh?

You'd think the name would be a clue.

Each bit of tarmac is a carriageway.
There's one carriageway - it's a single carriageway.
There's two carriageways - it's a dual carriageway.
How each carriageway is painted doesn't affect the number of 'em that there are...

Also learned that speed limits aren't set by how far apart the lamp posts are

It does.
If there's lamp posts and no repeaters, it's a 30.
If there's no lamp posts, and no repeaters, it's NSL.

Where was this speed awareness course...?