THIRD gear is my new best friend, I've learned out on the roads of West Lancashire.
This is one of the handy tips I've picked up by taking part in Drive On, a series of car and motorcycle courses aimed at helping to cut the region's accident rate by giving residents the chance to sharpen their skills. Lancashire County Council, the programme's providers, say it will help you improve the way you drive, but what I wanted to know is whether it works.
That's how I found myself heading through Halsall at exactly 30mph - no more, no less - with talented instructor Mike Hesp keeping a careful eye on exactly what I was doing, which was using fourth rather than third on the clearer bits of road.
Even though it seemed second nature to me, it got me a stern “requires attention” in Mike's books. It's amazing how much worse your driving can be compared to what you believe it is, no matter how many years of crash-free commuting you can claim.
More depressing still was a simple test Mike got me to do to test my reaction times once I'd parked up - he'd drop a marker card between my hands, and all I had to do was catch it. No matter how hard I tried, my fingers clasped the “slow” marker every time, meaning that out on the open road I'm closer to Driving School star Maureen Rees than Michael Schumacher.
“The aim is to give individual drivers the opportunity to address their own particular driving concerns and be able to address these effectively, safely and to build confidence,” a spokesperson for Lancashire County Council said during the launch of the course.
“At the end of the course drivers should have received appropriate training and information to help them deal with their own particular concerns.”
The course, which costs £65, takes place over two hours with an approved driving instructor at your side, but for a change there's not an L-plate in sight, and the lessons are largely dictated by what you want to learn. For me it was mainly about trying not to charge through the busier bits of the borough at slightly optimistic speeds, but whatever your driving worry is, the county council reckons its scheme could help you.
Does it work? Only if you take what the instructors say into your own drive home, but if I found car parks painful and motorways miserable, I'd rather take advantage of their tips than get it wrong the hard way.
For more information about Drive On contact Lancashire County Council's road safety group on 0800 328 1635 or visit the group's website at www.lancashire.gov.uk/roadsafety.
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