I need to pass my driving test before 1st of next month....Eeek! Is this possible?

Stoke

bowlhead99 wrote: »

That's a bad example though, because whenever I've needed to hit the brakes hard from a high speed, I haven't been thinking that at 50mph I will need 38 metres to stop after I've completed my thinking time.

Nobody needs to know the numbers, which were probably concocted five decades ago in a Ford Anglia - I know my car with modern brakes and tyres would stop quicker than any of the figures in the book even though it's getting on for two tonnes. Knowing the figures so that you can parrot them back is not going to save your life. It's simply the general concepts that wet takes longer than dry, and that higher speed requires exponentially more braking time than lower speed, which stand you in good stead for the practical aspect of driving safely.

It would certainly be more useful to be able to describe to your driving tester - during a practical test - how much space you need to stop from x mph, and then demonstrate that you were right... than to be able to parrot back a number of metres or feet from the tables for a given speed and correctly pick out 315 feet instead of 415 feet or 118 feet in a multiple-choice test for the 70mph stopping distance.

Understanding stopping distances should be enough to put you off speeding and tailgating.

Norman_Castle

^ I think the stopping distances are nonsense. Many people can learn lists of numbers but cannot show a given distance on the ground.

Ectophile

Norman_Castle wrote: »

^ I think the stopping distances are nonsense. Many people can learn lists of numbers but cannot show a given distance on the ground.

True. Many years ago, I had to learn all the stopping distances from the back of the Highway Code. I had no idea what the figures actually meant on the ground.

On fast roads, the two-second rule* makes much more sense.

*You should be at least two seconds behind the car in front.

Richard53

Cubanista wrote: »

Theory goes out the window as soon as people start driving anyway. It's irritating knowing i haven't passed my test, then seeing so many useless drivers on the road these days.

With respect, these 'useless drivers' have all passed a driving test, which you haven't managed to do so far. Perhaps get the most basic qualification before you start criticising others.

Car_54

Ectophile wrote: »

True. Many years ago, I had to learn all the stopping distances from the back of the Highway Code. I had no idea what the figures actually meant on the ground.

On fast roads, the two-second rule* makes much more sense.

*You should be at least two seconds behind the car in front.

And if there is no car in front?

Norman_Castle

Car_54 wrote: »

And if there is no car in front?

If there's no vehicle in front then the stopping distance is irrelevant. They're not intended to be used for stationary objects.

FreddieFrugal

Norman_Castle wrote: »

If there's no vehicle in front then the stopping distance is irrelevant. They're not intended to be used for stationary objects.

I think the poster meant if something forced you to stop but it wasn't a vehicle already on the road. As in a person blindly crossing.

Kid looking across road. You should count that as hazard and be able to judge whether, should they run onto road, you'd be able to stop in time.

You couldn't use 2 second rule for that, it would be a case of judging the distance some other way. But I don't think it's by learning them from a book. You should know your own car and know what stopping distance looks like for your vehicle.

GwylimT

Cubanista wrote: »

Theory goes out the window as soon as people start driving anyway. It's irritating knowing i haven't passed my test, then seeing so many useless drivers on the road these days.

So when you pass you're going to completely ignore stop signs etc?

Car_54

Norman_Castle wrote: »

If there's no vehicle in front then the stopping distance is irrelevant. They're not intended to be used for stationary objects.

It's very relevant. The stopping distance is the same, whether the object in front is moving or not!

The HC tells us "Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear." How can you do that if you don't know your stopping distances?

duchy

Perhaps the first step would be to find out what the wait time for appointments is in your area ?