Learning to drive on the motorway.

[Workingman]

This is what will happen (for some) if new plans come to fruition.

It is not that bad an idea if the learner has had a number of hours tuition behind the wheel and their instructor thinks they are confident and able enough. Unfortunately there are large areas of the country where a motorway is not within reach, not even on a two hour, or more, lesson.

Another plan is for a minimum number of hours of tuition behind the wheel before a learner takes the test - 120 hours is mooted. I am against this. We all learn at different rates and many learner drivers are ready for the test way before they have done 120 hours. One-size-fits-all schemes rarely work in the way the wonks in their focus groups intended, and 120 hours is more than twice that needed for a private pilot's licence.

However, one plan is missing and that is the mandatory use of green P plates in the first year after passing the test. My two had them and they both said that most other drivers gave them a bit more leeway than after they were removed and this allowed them to build their confidence.

[cromwell]

I would make X number of hours on a video simulator compulsory before L drivers were allowed on a motorway.

[Workingman]

Getting all learners on a motorway, be it real or on a simulator, before their test looks like a problem without a solution for many. Those out in the sticks will be no nearer to a simulator than a motorway due to their cost. It will take a lot of learners doing a lot of lessons to break even, and in remote areas the numbers are not there.

[Suff]

If it aint broke, keep fixing it until it is totally broken. This is what they have been doing with our tests for decades now.

More interestingly, every single initiative which has been put in place, already exists in another country in the EU. LIke motorway driving, compulsory in Germany and has been as long as I've been around. I drove 4 tonne trucks on the Autobahn for my UK drivers license with Fahrschule plates on...

Works? Funny ideas? How about EU test harmonisation continuing even though we're leaving.....

[TheOstrich]

I learnt and passed my test in Birmingham in the 70's. In those early days of gaining experience, I actually found motorway driving comparatively easy compared with urban driving, but then in those days, you didn't have average speed cameras, flexible use hard shoulders (the most dangerous innovation ever conceived in UK road driving, IMO), overhead speed limits which bear little resemblance to actual traffic conditions, and 50 mph roadworks covering 50% of the motorway network ....

[Suff]

The only really great benefit I saw from driving on the Autobahns was that you were forced to drive faster than your comfort zone and to live with it. 50mph or even 40mph "urban" motorways are a complete and utter waste of time and effort if we want learners on them. The only Motorway driving we need learners to learn is joining, flowing and leaving at 70mph.

At least if we managed to teach that we might avoid some of the worse joining accidents. Some drivers have absolutely 0% appreciation of speed differential. Or, more importantly, the stopping distance of the truck you just pulled out in front of at 30mph.

This becomes even more exacerbated in poor conditions like snow.

They spend their whole time teaching "to the book" nowadays and not teaching people to actually drive with awareness. Something I was taught very early.

Better awareness might avoid accidents like this. Even though this was the result, it would have been little consolation to the drivers family if he had been killed.

I remember it at the time, a friend of mine linked it.

[Workingman]

Suff, that's some footage. It just shows what can happen with a simple lack of awareness.

I passed my test in Grimsby after three lessons, but having done the RAF MT course in order to drive a Land Rover and towing tractor. The following week I was posted to Germany. Once there I had to do the BFG test - theory and practical - and failed. That led to 'lessons' out on the road as a Fahrschule. I can still recall the tutor's mantra.

Ahead
Mirror
Further ahead
Side mirror
Ahead
Under parked cars
Further ahead
Mirror
Side road
Ahead
.......

He was not the slightest bit interested in my ability to handle the car, but he wanted me to know what was going on around me. It has stuck with me.

[JoM]

Getting all learners on a motorway, be it real or on a simulator, before their test looks like a problem without a solution for many. Those out in the sticks will be no nearer to a simulator than a motorway due to their cost. It will take a lot of learners doing a lot of lessons to break even, and in remote areas the numbers are not there.

Well where I am in the Midlands we're quite 'well off' for motorways but there's the M6 which is at a virtual stand still due to volume of traffic for most of the time or the M6 Toll which is the complete opposite and often has nothing coming in either direction so wouldn't be much of a challenge to a learner. There's also the M54 but that's not much more than a dual carriage way with an M in front of the number.

[Workingman]

Well where I am in the Midlands we're quite 'well off' for motorways but there's the M6 which is at a virtual stand still due to volume of traffic for most of the time.

It is the same around most big cities, Jo, yet they are the only places within striking distance of a learner on, say, a double lesson. It is probably the main reason the plan will not go ahead.

[TheOstrich]

We have no motorways within around 40 - 50 miles of here - but we do have the A303 which is 70 mph dual-carriageway (M54 with an A prefix, Jo!) and features numerous sliproads with little run-off or run-on, so you're either braking heavily to avoid deploying a parachute from the rear, or trying to force yourself into a stream of lorries, usually from a standing start .......

I must confess I finished up a huge fan of the wide open spaces of the M6 Toll, despite the cost.