DRIVE SAFELY - IT MAY BE YOUR LAST CHANCE....

While browsing Google, as you do, and wondering about friends and writers I havent met for a while, I happened across fantasy writer William Horwood's website.

It's a long time since I saw William but I have fond memories of his arrival at my Lake District home one lunchtime, waving a bottle of champagne, and cheering about a new property he had just bought. After broaching the bottle and eating lunch, we walked up the fell and he pointed out tiny sundew flowers, which I had never seen before. William  always was a stimulating, interesting and amusing companion.

Anyway, the blog I found was about his experience after inadvertently breaking the speed limit one day. (He was doing 37mph in a 30m limit area.) He was offered the chance of attending a Speed Awareness Course at a cost of £60, rather than have 3 points on his licence. He chose this and found it interesting, instructive and, I guess, rather salutary. 

As one who always likes to tread in the footsteps of the famous, this happened to me too, not so long ago. I think I was doing 34. I realised the minute I'd passed the sign and slowed down, but too late, and a fortnight later along came my own invitation. I can tell you, after 48 years with a clean licence, I was mortified and only too pleased to have the chance to keep it clean. So off I went. And it was interesting. So much so that I decided to take it a step further and apply for a Skill for Life Course with the Institute of Advanced Motorists - something I've long wanted to do anyway.

I've just completed the course - six or seven runs with an Observer and then one with a Senior Observer, just to get a different eye on me - and taken the test, and I am more thrilled than I can say to tell you that I passed. It's a pretty intensive test, lasting nearly two hours and with a bit of everything - country lanes, estates with 20mph limits, motorway or dual carriageway, you name it - and on the day I took it I had heavy rain, standing water and spray to contend with too, but my examiner (a police driver) was relaxed and reassuring and at not time did I feel intimidated. I was just allowed to drive and display my newfound skills.

After 48 years on the roads, what were they? Well, things have changed a bit in the meantime - the motorway was a new concept back in 1964, there are a lot of different road signs now, there is a lot more traffic, and roundabouts are more complex. But if you drive all that time, you develop and grow with the changes, so I don't think I was all that bad. (But then, they say that 95% of drivers think they are above average, and obviously they can't all be!)

What I did discover was that I didn't use my nearside wing mirror enough (we didn't even have wing mirrors when I started!) and especially when turning left (there might be a bike coming up on the inside) and in fact I didn't use any of my mirrors enough. 'Only once every thirty seconds,' my Senior Observer said reprovingly. 'Try once every ten seconds!'

I also didn't know how to merge properly with motorway traffic (get your speed up to theirs, so that you are going as fast as the gaps) or to stay at that speed as you leave the motorway, so as not to inhibit vehicles behind you. I knew (from the Awareness Course) the two-second rule when following other vehicles - note when the chap in front passes some mark and mutter 'only a fool breaks the two-second rule' before you pass it as well. (Three or even four are better sometimes, but just saying it doesn't have the same effect.) But I didn't know about Limit Points on ordinary roads - always drive so that you can stop within the distance you can see ahead. Instead of making you go more slowly, it gives you the confidence to drive a little more briskly ('making progress' in IAMs language) and not hold up other traffic - one of the great principles of IAMs. (If you cause frustration in  another driver and he/she then goes on to have an accident, you have probably contributed to that accident.)

And that's what this course and the test have given me - confidence. As an older driver, I was aware that I was beginning to lose it a little. I was starting to drive more slowly. I didn't like big, busy roundabouts. I was beginning to to enjoy my driving.

Driving smoothly, stopping without a jerk and consideration for other road users was never a problem for me. But that's not enough. I wanted to know that I was a safe and efficient driver, and would continue so for the rest of my driving life.

So maybe breaking that speed limit back in March did more than myself a good turn. Since then, I have indeed been more aware. Awareness is the key - awareness of yourself, your car, of other road users. All of them, from other vehicles to mothers with toddlers and buggies, to the elderly and disabled, to people who may be deaf and not hear you, to the person walking a dog, to cyclists, to horse riders. Everyone.

Hopefully, if you see me coming now you won't need to duck into the hedge to save your life. But how will you know it's me?

I'm the one with the big smile, because this year I achieved something, and I am pretty dead chuffed about it!