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Hesitation and making progress

Hi all,

I have had lessons since november 2021 and have had over 40 hours,probably closer to 55 ish now (was 1.5 hours a week until september and I’ve been at uni so haven’t had very many since) driving manual. I picked up stuff like gears etc super fast and I’m a safe driver, it took ages to establish confidence in myself and it wasn’t until April 2022 that I was confident enough to drive with my mum and not instructor.

Since then my confidence has come on leaps and bounds and when driving with my mum I never make mistakes, I keep to the speed limit and drive in a relaxed, confident manner. With my mum I don’t hesitate or stall or anything like that but with my instructor it’s different. With her I don’t drive fast enough down residential roads and I make more mistakes. She got a new car recently and I was supposed to test on the 28th of April (cancelled cause of strikes) and I had only driven it a couple times before the lesson before my test.

It was awful, I kept driving too slow, couldn’t parallel park. Kept hesitating and missed the bite on the new clutch and stalled whilst pulling off a couple of times. I had another lesson on the 28th when I was meant to test and she said it was probably the best driving I’ve ever done.

So why did I mess up so much the lesson before? I feel so nervous with her and not my mum and I know I’ll be bricking it in the test so how can I get over my nerves bringing back my bad habits? I really want to pass 1st time on my test (each time it has been cancelled/moved due to uni etc) when I have it but this seems to be an instructor thing and a mental block in my head.

Reply 1

Muttly

Take your Mum's car and use it in the test, put 'L' plates on it and get temporary insurance (or named driver cover) verifying you are insured for a test. See the Govt web site for cars allowed for driving tests etc

Reply 2

starrnamu

Original post by Muttly

I can’t do that, she needs the car for work and my test is already arranged for my instructor’s car. Plus my problem is with nerves/pressure in lessons and mock tests, it’s not the physical car as I’m used to her new one. If that was an option I’d consider it but I can’t do that.