There we go! My first lesson with Shaun Murray was yesterday, and it was fantastic! Here is what I learnt and my thoughts throughout!
I first had my lesson planned in for the 11th June, 3 days after my 17th birthday but a certain little baby came along so my lesson was rescheduled for yesterday, 18th June!
I waited until the clock reached 1pm and headed outside, Shaun was there and we introduced ourselves. We straight away went to an area in Harwood which we knew would be quiet and parked up to go through the safety of the vehicle.
In the first hour, we went through so many different things, first it was a cockpit check, to make sure everything was right for me, the seats (which I had to have as far forward and as high as possible because I’m so small!)
I already knew quite a bit about the safety of the vehicle and why everything had to be to my height etc so we moved on to foot controls. This is the part which I was most nervous about, other than setting off of course. I already knew the order of the pedals, knew what the accelerator and the brake were for but the clutch sort of baffled me, I knew it was for changing gears but not about the biting point! After a conversation with Shaun I felt a lot more confident using my pedals.
After the foot controls came the hand controls, I thought I knew most about these but we’re wrong, I didn’t know the parking brake only operated on 2 wheels! We also went through the gear lever, steering wheel, indicators and some other controls and after a short while I felt quite confident.
There it was, the time to move off! I was really nervous, but Shaun made me feel really comfortable, especially as he called me Ell (my family do this!). He taught me the POM method (Prepare, Observe and Movement and straight after that we were off!
After the setting off came the stopping, I then learnt the MSM method, Mirrors, Signal and Manoeuvre and he taught me to stop about 30cm away from the kerb. I found this quite easy, and didn’t even end up on the kerb at this point!
After doing this a few times it was time for left junctions! He told me about mirrors, signalling, position, speed, looking, point of turn and then mirrors again for the new road. At first we were in first gear but after a while
We were getting to the end of our 2 hours after doing this for a while, so before we finished he wanted to teach me to stop on and go up a hill! We went up Hough Fold Way and I did it! I parked on a hill without hitting the kerb! To end the lesson we went down the hill and he had me stop again, unfortunately though, for the first time in the lesson, I ended up hitting the kerb!
It was a really good first lesson and I thoroughly enjoyed it, he helped with my nerves and definitely with my confidence, I can’t wait for the next lesson and to tell you about it!
