the daily snivel

I'm pleased to say that I passed my defensive driving evaluation this week with flying colours. My instructor actually remarked it had been a long time since he'd seen so few shifting, steering, and general handling errors, as much as I need to work on being much more observant (in terms of things like scanning inside and ground-viewing parked cars and keeping a minimum eye lead time when in motion), which was where my score really suffered (I got a 44 out of 50 - a pass is 35). But one thing I definitely didn't do was make any kind of driving error or illegal move that would have failed me on a road test. I was starting and shifting very smoothly -- most times, you can't even feel the car shift. I'm definitely becoming a better and better driver each week as I progress through my lessons. I'm not perfect, of course, but I have come a long way from the nervous nellie who first started shifting gears in a parking lot last winter and stalled far too often in the middle of downtown traffic.

In fact, I think I'm just about ready to take my road test, and am seriously considering taking it in my instructor's manual Mazda3, even though so many people have said it's a much easier test to do in an automatic. I'm becoming very comfortable with a manual transmission and have gotten over a lot of bad habits and beginner's mistakes. Certainly when the time comes to buy a car, I know I'm not going back. The final evaluation for my driving course will actually be a simulated driving test -- running the same route and using the same maneuvers as will be required by the Ministry examiner (all of whom are trained by Young Drivers these days). If I can pass that, I know I will be truly ready to take the road test and get my licence.

The one thing that I'm still working on is processing lots of information at the same time while driving, in the sense that you have to be aware of who is behind you, what's going on up ahead, whether the traffic light is "fresh" or "stale" and whether anyone's about to cut you off. I'm quite good at this on a bicycle, but everything happens a lot faster in a car, and while much of driving is now second nature to me, there's still refinement. Of course, if I had any access to a car, I'd have the ability to practice outside my weekly lessons, but such is not the case.

Still, my instructor and I both learned a lesson about the powers of observation, because we both missed what could have been a very serious accident until it was almost upon us. I'd been stopped on the Vanier Parkway, about to turn left onto St. Patrick Street to return to the University of Ottawa, and we were waiting for our turning arrow. There's no ability to turn from that lane if the arrow isn't green, and we'd been advancing slowly forward and had to wait as some fire trucks blared through the intersection, and the light would quickly change throughout this progress and stay red for considerable periods of time. Finally, we were at the head, the arrow turned green, and my instructor told me to get moving. Ahead we went, when all of a sudden a car decided to proceed through the red and turn left onto the Parkway. She cut right into our path and had we both not caught it and hit the brakes together (such cars have a passenger-side brake pedal for the instructor), she would have thoroughly t-boned us on the passenger side. I don't believe in honking horns out of anger, but I was sorely tempted to. It was an idiotic thing for that driver to do. I don't know if she'd run the red or was absent-mindedly anticipating her light to change green, but I learned something about being really clear on not assuming that you're in the clear just because your turn is protected by a signal. People can and will do idiotic and illegal things. Commensensical, yes, and of course I do scan intersections before proceeding, but you really only need to have it happen in practice once to hit home.

On the other hand, the fact that both my instructor and I were caught by surprise didn't make me feel as bad. She really did just come out of nowhere. The intersection looked perfect, and had motion not cut into the corner of my instructor's eye, we could both have been badly hurt (and at the very least his precious shiny new car would have been).

I guess the lesson is, you have to be a very cautious and defensive driver, because a lot of other drivers out there are complete numbnuts (and yes, I'm talking to you, Mr. I'm-reading-the-Globe-and-Mail-while-I'm-driving).

Luckily, this official test says I am a very cautious and defensive driver. Yay me.