THE GOOD BUCK

Spoke too soon. All going swimmingly, quietly competent, HAH! I’ve changed my mind. I’m taking to it like a duck to ballet. I thought I was doing alright, not killed anyone, not too nervous, seemed like all was spiffy, just one lesson and all. Turns out I was in the ‘unconsciously incompetent’ phase; where I didn’t know how much I didn’t know. I was wondering how I was supposed to judge the tighter corners when as you turn into them, the trailer blocks your view in one mirror, and the other is pointing at nothing in particular. Wasn’t overly concerned as I seemed to be doing it anyway. Then we came to an island today. Obviously you are all aquiver with the amount of things you are trying to do at once in that situation. You have to line the truck up, bring your speed down, select the appropriate gear, try to keep moving, then leap into any gap in the traffic with all sixty foot of wagon. I was doing all of the above, spotted a gap and went for it. The instructor said "you’re too tight on the left." I looked in my mirror and sure enough I had started steering too soon and my trailer was heading for the pavement and there were railings on the edge. I acted instinctively, which is to steer the front end in, around the corner. This would have put the arse end out and clear in a car or rigid truck. Not so in an artic. I smacked the trailer straight into the railings and dragged along them! Bollocks! We had to stop and check that I’d not made the trailer un-roadworthy (it was just a tad scuffed). If that had have been a car or a pedestrian, well, there probably wouldn’t have been a lot down for them. So then I started to understand what he meant about steering out until your rear axle is clear, then start steering in, keeping an eye on the wide angle mirrors, and chase the cab along the line of the pavement. So I’ve made the leap to ‘consciously incompetent’, I now know how much I don’t know. At this rate I’m on schedule. The next level is ‘consciously competent’ where I have to think about every action but then get it right, crack that tomorrow, then I just have ‘unconsciously competent’ where I instinctively do the right thing. Polish that on Thursday, then walk my test on Friday! Easy when you think about it. Those who don’t want to know the result of Friday’s test, bury your head in your hands now. After yesterday going so well (apart from the reverse, which is a nightmare) I really thought I was going to sail through this, maybe even pass first time. Now I’m back to my default position; that I just keep trying until I do pass. Big come down. We’ll see how tomorrow goes. If I’ve taken on board the things I was […]

Well, after all the excitement of the wedding I’m back to the day to day stuff. I went out for my first lesson in an artic yesterday. I did that one drive up and down a straight road before, but yesterday was the biggy. Forty four foot trailer, dirty great DAF unit. Bloody huge. He told me to drive it up the big straight road I went to on my assessment, not a problem, do a U-turn at the top, fine and dandy, drive back, easy peasy, take the next left onto the main road, DO WHAT? And that was my warm up done. One tootle up and down a quiet road, then out into the real world in the best part of sixty foot of truck! Stunningly, it wasn’t so bad. A lot better than my first two tests in a rigid. That was thirty two hours of driving and I was still rigid with fear. From the offset (he says, deliberately refraining from using that hideous Americanism ‘ from the get-go’. Damn their pervasive media and bastardisation of our language. "This is the language of Shakespear, keats, the bible" to loosely quote Higgins from "My fair lady" -though not, as I recall from the book Pygmalion.) Meanwhile, back at the Buck-cave, I was talking about my driving. From the offset…, I was quietly competent. As the instructor said, "now you know you could steal an artic. You might clip a few pavements, but you could drive it away." You can tell we are not far from Liverpool! I had issues with the reversing into a bay exercise, but after I’d done it he explained that they’ve set their course up shorter and narrower than at the test centre, so if you can crack it in their yard you can piss it at the centre. I like the attitude. As the Russian army are reported to say, "Train hard, fight easy." Right, time is slipping away, it’s time to don my fat suit, crack open a Yorkie bar and slip my Sun newspaper in my bum cleavage. Let’s go to work. By the way, when I’d finished yesterday and got back into the mighty Micra I burst out laughing. It was like getting into a toy car! Dinky little steering wheel, biddy gear stick, titchy car. Time to terrify some more car drivers. Later, Buck.