Driving Tips – Making mistakes

 
This week’s driving tip is Making mistakes.
 
Almost all learner drivers, at least the sensible ones, worry a little (or a lot!) about making mistakes.
 
But it’s important to remember that most of the most important lessons you will ever learn in life come from mistakes – and learning lessons about driving is no different.
 
 

 
 
It can be very embarrassing if another road user sound the horn, gestures or makes an inappropriate comment when a learner makes a mistake, but all these people are doing is showing their own ignorance; it’s important to remember that we all have to learn and that we all make mistakes.
 
Mistakes are not just limited to learner drivers either… Experienced drivers have lapses of concentration, get confused in strange areas or over-estimate their abilities.

 
 

 
 

It’s not your mistakes that matter, it’s what you do about them. After making a mistake take a deep breath and relax, this will help you to recover and think about what happened. Whether with an instructor, friend, parent or on your own after passing the test, it’s a good idea to find a safe place to pull up and think about what happened and how you can prevent it happening in future.
 
This does a couple of things:
 

• It helps to make sure that you will be prepared and ready to avoid mistakes if a similar situation happens in future,
• It gives time for traffic to move on, so anyone who saw your mistake will be long gone when you set off again.

 
 

 
 

While learning to drive you can minimise mistakes by always driving in areas that you are comfortable with. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t stretch yourself, but keep any ‘driving challenges’ to a manageable level. It’s also important no to move on to manoeuvres and other exercises until you have all the basic skills that you need.
 
After you pass your test you can minimise mistakes by careful journey planning and building your driving experience gradually, for example it might be wise to avoid some roads during rush-hour until you feel comfortable driving alone on quieter roads.
 
So… Go ahead, make mistakes… After all, that’s how you’ll learn.