IHCD Blue Light Driver Training Days 6-8

A good place to practise?

Day 6
Cornering. I made it in to work early today to get myself some breakfast from the canteen as I had nothing in the cupboards nor fridge. I settled for a nice bacon and egg toastie with a milky cup of tea. Also I wanted to make sure that the vehicle daily inspections were completed well in advance of 0900 as instructed by the tutor on Friday. Of course, a 0900 start never materialised as the tutor was collared by some colleagues. So I went to the canteen for another cup of tea, this time I made it a little stronger.

Eventually we set off for a day of cornering in the windy roads that interlace the local counties. We were briefed on the principles of cornering and reminded of the presentation that took place on Day 5 including: road camber and surfaces; centrifugal force; safety factors; and the system of car control for cornering. Fortunately (or more likely intentionally) the choice of roads afforded us plenty of opportunity to put the principles of cornering into practise. Over the course of eight hours we must have turned a couple of hundred corners and each time we used commentary to reinforce the learning. Commentating while driving is thirsty work too.

The most useful tool for cornering from my point of view is the limit point.

This is the point at which the nearside and offside kerbs appear to meet.

Therefore if the the distance between the limit point and the vehicle decreases, so does the speed of the vehicle. If the distance remains the same, so can the speed. If the distance increases you can consider increasing speed. Genius.

By the end of the day we were more proficient with our cornering skills and will be practising them for the remainder of the course. I read that the rule of thumb for mastering a new skill is 10000 hours, still a few to go then.

Day 7

Overtaking. First part of the day was vehicle daily inspections, no change there. We topped up the radiator fluid and pumped up the tyre pressures. Before we got  to do any driving we sat in the ambulance with the tutor and discussed the considerations and special hazards of overtaking. In a nutshell overtaking is one of the most hazardous manoeuvres that takes place on the roads. This is mainly because you can come into conflict with other road users and hazards.

After a good ten minutes discussion we set off to find some unsuspecting road users. No you might ask how unsuspecting we could be in 4.5 tonne bright yellow ambulance? That’s a good question. We used an unmarked lease car instead. This I guess was to withdraw the courtesy that the majority of road users afford ambulance when we get extremely close to them on high speed single carriageways.

The day was extremely enjoyable. We got to perform a vast array of overtaking exercises on all different types of roads. The main lesson learned for me was to always have an exit plan if the overtake suddenly becomes impossible.

Day 8

More of the same. Today we practised cornering and overtaking in a marked up ambulance. The differences between a car and these massive vehicles are vast. From the information you require and display, through position, speed, gear to acceleration sense there are no similarities. The only thing they have in common is the system of car control. The system works.

These past three days have been fantastic for opening my eyes to the dangers of large vehicular movements. Although we have learned a lot we need to practise these skills for a long time to come and maintain them for as long as we use the roads. I am a bit of a pragmatist and will make best use of a system, others are a little less anal and will allow shortcuts to creep in. I don’t understand why, but they do.

If you were to take a driving test how do you think you would perform? Leave an honest comment if you dare.