Do you know what the "Driving Line" is? You may never have had it explianed to you... — Transcript

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1. 0:02okay so i just want to explain a little
2. 0:04bit about positioning and somewhere
3. 0:06where you could be a little bit better i
4. 0:08told you that there are times when
5. 0:09you're going past parked cars like
6. 0:11you're a little bit too far yeah
7. 0:13okay
8. 0:14um when we're driving we follow
9. 0:17something called the driving line okay
10. 0:19now if you imagine
11. 0:22a road
12. 0:24yeah
13. 0:25without any markings yeah without any
14. 0:27center line yeah it's a two-way road
15. 0:30let me ask you where would be the
16. 0:32correct position to drive
17. 0:34would it be here
18. 0:36would it be
19. 0:37here
20. 0:40or would it be
21. 0:43yeah the third one a
22. 0:45b
23. 0:47or c
24. 0:48c c
25. 0:49you both say c yeah that's good you're
26. 0:51correct
27. 0:52but why can you explain to me why is it
28. 0:54c because there are no uh markings yeah
29. 0:58and then front you can because if the
30. 1:00left hand side any cars anything's been
31. 1:03parked
32. 1:04so you can control the turn the rights
33. 1:06yeah what i'm looking for is for you to
34. 1:09tell me what your brain is doing what
35. 1:11your brain does is your brain looks at
36. 1:13the road
37. 1:14and it divides the road in half here
38. 1:17and then
39. 1:19it says right that's the half yeah where
40. 1:22is the middle of my half
41. 1:24yeah
42. 1:27it's there roughly
43. 1:29yeah yeah
44. 1:30and what happens is with experience
45. 1:33your brain performs as calculation
46. 1:35without you realizing yeah so sometimes
47. 1:37maybe when you're learning to drive the
48. 1:38instructor telling you keep a little bit
49. 1:39left a little bit right a little bit
50. 1:40left a little bit right you're thinking
51. 1:42well how do i know it's because your
52. 1:44brain should be doing this yeah you
53. 1:46divide you quarter the road you divide
54. 1:47it in half then you divide it in half
55. 1:48again yeah
56. 1:50i've never heard anybody explain this to
57. 1:52anybody before so that's what i'm
58. 1:53telling you yeah
59. 1:55if you then
60. 1:57introduce
61. 1:59an obstruction in the road for example a
62. 2:01parked car
63. 2:02yeah
64. 2:04the principal is the same you divide the
65. 2:06road in half what's remaining
66. 2:09you divide that half in half
67. 2:11and that gives you your position yeah so
68. 2:14by the brain doing this all the time
69. 2:18it gives us what we call
70. 2:22our driving line yeah and at the same
71. 2:25time
72. 2:26if there's a vehicle apart from this
73. 2:27side
74. 2:32divide the road in half
75. 2:33divide that half in half
76. 2:37yeah yeah that's what we call the
77. 2:38driving line yeah the driving line is
78. 2:40always being in the middle
79. 2:42of your half of the road and if there's
80. 2:44an obstruction
81. 2:46yeah just
82. 2:47factor that into the equation yeah
83. 2:49now if there's a white line
84. 2:51down the middle of the road
85. 2:54what happens is sometimes it actually
86. 2:55confuses you yeah and you're thinking
87. 2:57right well
88. 2:58i'm in my lane yeah i may have to go
89. 3:01over the white line a little bit yeah
90. 3:05provided there's enough room for the
91. 3:06oncoming vehicle to pass there's no need
92. 3:08to stop
93. 3:09and what's happening sometimes when
94. 3:10you're driving like when that bus driver
95. 3:12pulled out unless he had an obstruction
96. 3:14in his side
97. 3:15yeah he pulled out but he could see
98. 3:18that the road was wide enough and
99. 3:20provided that you came a little bit to
100. 3:21the left and follow your driving line
101. 3:23the two of you could pass each other so
102. 3:25you've got to realize an oncoming
103. 3:27vehicle
104. 3:28will look at the amount of room
105. 3:29available and if they think that you can
106. 3:30both pass each other safely they'll keep
107. 3:32coming and in the same way when you're
108. 3:34passing a parts vehicle as long as you
109. 3:37leave enough room for the oncoming
110. 3:38vehicle and then squeeze them you can
111. 3:39carry on yeah now you may need a signal
112. 3:42if you're going over the white line
113. 3:44yeah you also have to be aware that the
114. 3:45car door may open yeah so when you're
115. 3:47positioning yourself be ready for
116. 3:48something unexpected yeah at the same
117. 3:50time
118. 3:51the vehicle that's coming towards you
119. 3:54somebody might open the car door on his
120. 3:55side yeah yeah so he may have to come a
121. 3:58little bit wider yeah this is how a good
122. 4:01driver thinks a good driver doesn't just
123. 4:02look at the stationary cars they think
124. 4:04right i'm going to position myself to
125. 4:06help the bus driver coming towards me
126. 4:08somebody may open the door on his side
127. 4:10he may have to come over a little bit
128. 4:11ready so i'm ready for that yeah you
129. 4:13have to be ready for these things
130. 4:14remember just because it's on the
131. 4:16opposite side of the road doesn't mean
132. 4:18say it's not going to affect you it will
133. 4:19affect you because it's going to affect
134. 4:21that bus and that bus is going to affect
135. 4:23you yeah you have to see it's like a
136. 4:24game of chess you have to see how one
137. 4:26piece when it moves it affects the other
138. 4:28pieces yeah okay now
139. 4:31something else
140. 4:34when i'm driving
141. 4:36i'm just going to tell you how i
142. 4:37visualize the road and how i visualize
143. 4:39my positioning
144. 4:40yeah
145. 4:42have you ever played space invaders you
146. 4:45know there's an old game called space
147. 4:46invaders yeah
148. 4:47it's a little like a little spaceship on
149. 4:49the bottom of the screen and it moves
150. 4:50from side to side yeah i know okay right
151. 4:54the way i drive
152. 4:57and i did tell you earlier i said the
153. 4:58hardest thing to do is drive the bus
154. 5:00straight with experience you learn to
155. 5:02drive around corners you learn to avoid
156. 5:03the kerbs and position the bus for tight
157. 5:05corners but some drivers never learn how
158. 5:08to hold the bus absolutely straight yeah
159. 5:12when i'm driving
160. 5:14the way i visualize the road is
161. 5:16when i'm here
162. 5:18i want to be straight yeah when i'm here
163. 5:21i'm straight yeah
164. 5:23and when i pass the parts vehicle i want
165. 5:25to be straight again yeah so the way i
166. 5:27visualize it is like this i visualize
167. 5:28i'm going along
168. 5:30i come out and i get straight
169. 5:33i come in and i get straight yeah like
170. 5:35that game space invaders where this
171. 5:37spaceship moves from side to side yeah
172. 5:40that's how i visualize the road now you
173. 5:41can't really drive like that because
174. 5:42it's very abrupt when you steer your
175. 5:45passengers are going to get thrown
176. 5:46around here so what you do is you smooth
177. 5:48it out
178. 5:49you smooth out that steering
179. 5:52when you get to here you smooth it out
180. 5:55but the way i visualize the road is like
181. 5:57this i always try and be straight so
182. 6:00i'll always try and get my position
183. 6:01early and straighten
184. 6:03come in early and straighten you what
185. 6:05you tend to do when you're driving is a
186. 6:07bit more like this yeah
187. 6:18yeah you tend to
188. 6:20move out a little bit later
189. 6:23and that means that you wander out a
190. 6:24little bit too far and that can
191. 6:26sometimes
192. 6:28affect
193. 6:29the vehicle coming towards you yeah
194. 6:32and then you tend to come back a little
195. 6:34bit late as well it's more like a banana
196. 6:36shape yeah
197. 6:37everything's just a little bit late
198. 6:39whereas you could be
199. 6:40more efficient
200. 6:42yeah you've got to keep the steering
201. 6:43smooth but you could do everything a
202. 6:44little bit earlier yeah but always
203. 6:46remember try and keep the bus straight
204. 6:47when you're passing the park vehicles
205. 6:50all you want is enough room for the door
206. 6:51to open yeah
207. 6:53but what you tend to do sometimes is
208. 6:57get a bit more
209. 6:59like that so you've got a little bit a
210. 7:00little bit too much room there yeah
211. 7:02it's not necessary because it means that
212. 7:04you got to put this vehicle is coming
213. 7:05towards you
214. 7:06under pressure yeah
215. 7:08i understand yeah
216. 7:10okay i said to you about smoothing
217. 7:11things out yeah everything that we do
218. 7:13when we're driving has to be smooth yeah
219. 7:16and i'll just give you a little example
220. 7:18here of a little bit of psychology here
221. 7:21if you give a child
222. 7:23one of these drawing books
223. 7:25and it has
224. 7:27some
225. 7:28join the dots
226. 7:30puzzles in there yeah
227. 7:32and you ask the child to join the dots
228. 7:34the child will do this
229. 7:42yeah but as an adult
230. 7:45i would expect you
231. 7:47to join the dots
232. 7:50i don't
233. 7:52like that yeah because i haven't told
234. 7:54you it has to be straight lines
235. 7:56you've got to realize that you've got
236. 7:58smooth everything out and so is when
237. 7:59you're driving yeah
238. 8:02and when i say smooth everything out the
239. 8:03reason i use that example
240. 8:06about joining the dots is when you're
241. 8:07driving down the road
242. 8:09you don't just have one thing at a time
243. 8:11to deal with
244. 8:13yeah
245. 8:14you might have a zebra crossing
246. 8:18a parked car
247. 8:22a parked car on the other side
248. 8:32all right
249. 8:33and if you're here
250. 8:35you can't just think about one thing at
251. 8:37a time yeah
252. 8:39because you're always going to get
253. 8:40surprised you're always going to be
254. 8:42behind mentally behind yeah so when
255. 8:44you're here
256. 8:46you ease off the gas and you think right
257. 8:47maybe someone's going to walk towards
258. 8:49the zebra crossing from somewhere yeah
259. 8:52they could come from anywhere you ease
260. 8:54off the gas about three or four seconds
261. 8:55before and you set the zebra crossing
262. 8:58while you're looking at the zebra
263. 8:59crossing
264. 9:00you have to be aware of this parked car
265. 9:02maybe the doors can open when you pass
266. 9:03it so as you go through that zebra
267. 9:05crossing you're positioning yourself to
268. 9:08get past the parked car
269. 9:10while you're doing that you've got to be
270. 9:11aware that somebody may open the door on
271. 9:13this side and that's going to force that
272. 9:14vehicle
273. 9:16into your side of the road yeah and then
274. 9:18you've got the corner to deal with
275. 9:19a good driver doesn't just see one thing
276. 9:21at a time a good driver can see the
277. 9:23whole road in one go they can see the
278. 9:24crossing the people crossing the door
279. 9:26here the door there and the corner one
280. 9:27go
281. 9:29but when you're learning it's like
282. 9:30you're doing dot to dot you're doing one
283. 9:32thing at a time yeah but this is what we
284. 9:34look for
285. 9:35and with experience you can look down
286. 9:37the busy road and you can see everything
287. 9:39you can see all the pedestrians all the
288. 9:40crossings all the cars all the buses bus
289. 9:42stops everything in one day your brain
290. 9:43can process it yeah
291. 9:45but at the moment
292. 9:47because you've not driven to this
293. 9:50like intense
294. 9:52you know um
295. 9:54intense sort of
296. 9:55um level before it's
297. 9:58you're not seeing all these things at
298. 9:59the same time but experience you will
299. 10:01but this is why sometimes we're saying
300. 10:02you know come on get go and get going or
301. 10:04slow down slow down because what's
302. 10:05happening is you're dealing with this
303. 10:06but there's something developing over
304. 10:08here that you haven't seen yeah
305. 10:10so it's like that