I have to say that is the most stressful thing I can remember doing – well – forever!
200 people in a room for a presentation? Bring it on – it’s easy! Put a Lifeboat alongside a ship? – while I’m drinking coffee with the other hand.
An 18-ton Volvo FM Curtainsider through
Instructor: “Roundabout ahead – off the power – brakes - no squeeze, squeeze! MORE brakes…into 5th”.
Me: (Thinks) 5th?? I haven’t got a clue which bloody gear I’m in now let alone where 5th is!! (they have 8 or 16 gears).
Instructor: “Watch your nearside. Mind that car. You’re too near the kerb. Indicate. Mirrors!! You’re in bloody 2nd!! Button up and back to you. Don’t rev it so hard. Watch your offside”!
Me: (Please can I go home now, I don’t like this!)
Then we calm down a bit. And he says “You’re doing fine” (I wasn’t convinced). Then we chatted about my career in IT and his in haulage.
And then we had the Bob Newhart moment (he’s very calm and collected but looses it in crisis!)
A dual carriageway and a woman in a car pulls out at a junction but stops with 2 or 3 feet of bonnet sticking out. I check the offside mirror and I’ve got White-Van-Man outside of me and can’t go anywhere. Can’t find the brake pedal as it’s hidden next to the steering column. Instructor can’t see the white van….
Instructor: “Pull out right. To your right. PULL OUT, PULL OUT”!! White-Van-Man cuts across the front of me. I miss the woman in the Mondeo by about an inch it seems.
Roundabout ahead. I stop.
Instructor: “Into 3rd”.
Me: “Look, I’ve totally lost it. Where’s 3rd”?
Instructor: “Range-change button down and top right”.
Finally, we get to the last roundabout. “Come on, you know now: put the centre of the cab on the seam in the tarmac. That’s it. Don’t over-steer. Signal, Mirrors! Mind your blind side. We enter the depot we left an hour ago.
Instructor: “Good - pull in behind those tractor units. Did you enjoy that”?
Me: (quivering wreck) “Bloody great. When’s my next lesson”!!
I’ve driven 7.5 toners but this is something else. If only the motoring public knew!!
Got to book and pass a theory and hazard perception test next then give myself up for 5 or 6 days of this. That hour was the most frenetic I can remember for a long time.
