driving - #16 and #17 (end of lessons)

subject 29 was the 2nd last subject, which is to focus on weak areas and do comprehensive driving. Mr Yeow took me, as usual. I find he's not very strict in blind spots and safety distance, which i was found myself to be weak. I have a problem with vertical and parallel parking too, due to insufficient practice.

if the parking is good, it's alright. Once the alignment is gone, things get screwed. Hope to get this right over the next few revisions.

the last subject, which is warm up plus pre-test assessment, was taken by a brand new instructor from riding side. He don't look his age, and surprisingly he has been with SSDC for 14-15 years. I won't quote his name because he helped me alot to get through this so i can book for TP today, even i didn't do well. In fact i did badly for the assessment.

he almost exposed all my shortcoming in the 2 hours. Although he added some suggestions, which weren't taught earlier. So, i found it too late to adjust. More on this later.

my shortcomings can be briefly summarised - not stopping at stop line (immediate failure item, i thought i managed to kill this bad habit until today) and distraction causing immediate failure. It was so easy to make mistakes when given unfamiliar instructions in the circuit. His instructions were not the normal ones - so far only i found Fariq, my 1st riding instructor and possibly testers gave similar ones.

the distraction part happens when the circuit is very crowded. Not girls lah, by the way.

he gave many suggestions in the areas of vertical parking (a completely new sighting point), parallel parking and inching out. Inching out after stopping at a minor road is a damn grey area so far, with some instructors saying i could be penalised for not inching out, the rest saying i should inch out. He added some twist to it as well.

at the end, he said things i agreed.

- be confident

- there are some things that are not usually taught. Testers will kill you (me) by using these things.

by the way, all the problems occurred in the circuit.

my TP is on 5 Jan 2009, 9.25am.

I think the #1 failure reason for auto learners - thanks to this sign