I've had about 8 hours of lessons so far, and I'm at the point where I can drive reasonably well in light traffic. The route my instructor currently has me on takes me on a circuit through a mixture of main roads and residential areas around Farnham Common and Farnham Royal in Berkshire, edging into the Slough Industrial Estate - It's an excellent route to take, plenty of traffic lights, junctions and roundabouts to get used to. I'm currently doing my lessons on either a Saturday or Sunday late morning, so the traffic is reasonably heavy but still light enough to not be too intimidating.
In terms of following legal limits, I'm also making sure to do this - I can shift from 1st to 2nd to 3rd gear at an adequate speed and make sure to follow the speed limits. This is where the thread title comes in - It seems that Farnham Royal/Common and Slough are home to some of the most impatient and aggressive drivers in Berkshire - In my previous lesson, I had a minicab driver undertake and mount the pavement (where several pedestrians were walking, causing a near miss as a result) to get around me, even though traffic was moving slowly because the queue I was in had just started to pull away from the set of traffic lights we were at. I've also had people aggressively tailgating me and trying to get in my boot, whether I'm pulling off at the same speed as everyone else or not.
To say that these incidents are making me nervous is an understatement, and from doing some research, it would seem I'm definitely not alone in experiencing these sorts of things. Why exactly do people feel willing to be aggressive towards learners, even to the point of putting themselves and other people around them at risk?
i've been learning for a while and at first these drivers would really put me off but now i don't care. if i'm driving at the speed limit (or even 2 mph over sometimes and they're still up my backside) why should i do anything different?! i just find it funny now and concentrate on driving rather than them. if they wanna put themselves/others in danger then go ahead, they'll be the one at fault!
im doing lessons atm too and when doing a U-turn, i had one kids from a group of 3 think he was hard, stood in front of the car as i was turning (very tempted to hit him), then ran after the car as i drove off.
drivers are more patient round here though
iv done 5 lessons in the past (4ish yrs ago) and im on my 4th lesson with my 5th tomorrow consisting of 2 hours. i also have 2 booked for next week.
so far iv done all the usual junctions, roundabouts, lights etc, done my emergency stop and reverse parking.
hopefully ready to do my test soon
I find alot of those who have so much resentment towards learner drivers are in fact themselves, awful drivers. Taxi drivers are *******s and drivers in general just don't care. Worse they'll actually, say, cut in front of you in the roundabout.
Awful. Selfish.
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