This should have gone in last week...
When I was learning to drive my mum was generally a good person to practice with - she didn't say much but let me get on with it unless there was a real problem and was good company - but on one drive a month before my test gave me the most useless piece of advice possible.

I was one car behind a Morris Minor doing about 30 down a 60 road, on which there's only one point you can overtake. The car in front waits till it's clear (past the point you can really do anything) and begins to move out, just as another car rounds the corner coming towards us. He thinks he can do it and goes for it. At this point I slow down to stay well back, which is what my mum should've advised me to do, except she came out with the most useless (not to mention highly dangerous) advise possible. Both cars had to stop, and I'd left space for the overtaker to move back in. The Morris Minor carried on regardless, the old woman driving (who turned off not two minutes later) apparently blissfully unaware of the whole incident.

So what was the advice, when she should have been telling me to be sensible and keep a good distance of a seemingly innevitable crash?

"DON'T LOOK!"

Apparently she thought if I saw a bad accident I'd be put off driving. Not make it worse by going off the road, having shut my eyes.
( Whillow, Thu 19 Oct 2006, 22:50, Reply)