MISTAKES – RECOGNISE AND CORRECT THEM

Don’t worry about making mistakes.

The most important thing is to recognise immediately that you have made a mistake and that you know exactly what to do to correct that mistake. This could be in driving generally or when carrying out a manoeuvre.

The most common example of this would be to be intending to change gear from say 3rd gear to 2nd gear, but accidently put it into 4th gear instead of 2nd gear.

When changing from 3rd gear to 2nd gear you should be expecting the car to slow down more as you bring the clutch up and that the engine will probably sound a little louder.

But if you selected 4th gear by mistake, the car will not slow down, but possibly go a little faster and the engine will be quieter. This should tell you that you are in the wrong gear,

so therefore you immediately take it out of 4th gear and put it into 2nd gear the problem as been resolved.

This is also why you should start the slowing down procedure early to enable you to rectify any gear-change mistakes, but mainly so that by slowing down earlier on the approach, you will be feeling less anxious and thus less likely to make the mistake in the first place.