STALLING

If you stall the engine DON’T concentrate on looking in the rear view mirror at the driver behind you, trying to gauge whether they’re upset, angry or annoyed with you.

Because while you are concentrating on, and evaluating their reaction to your stall, you’re STILL THERE!!!

Instead, focus on safely restarting the car and moving off again. By concentrating on what you need to do next to get your car moving again you will be there for much less time.

Imagine if you were behind a car which has just stalled. Would you want the driver of the car in front of you to concentrate on watching you in their rear view mirror, or would you want them to concentrate on getting their car started and moving again?

If you’re worrying about the driver behind you as you try to get going again, there is a very good chance that you may well stall again in your attempt to get going ‘quickly’ to get out of their way.

Instead, put 100% focus into what you need to do to get going, by exaggerating each movement. By this I mean, put 100% concentration into making sure that you have set sufficient gas, be sensitive to where the ‘bite’ point of the clutch is and be very reluctant to allow the clutch to reach the top of it’s travel until you have moved off at least a car length. Then when everything is set, check the mirrors to ensure that it is now safe to move off and that no one is overtaking you. At no point concern yourself with the reactions of the driver behind you.

By focusing and concentrating as described above, the driver behind is less likely to get upset with you as you will have only held them up for a short period of time in any case. They may not have even noticed that you have stalled. If you see them mouthing something, it may be that they’re singing along with the music in their car, chatting with their passengers or even talking on their hands-free mobile phone. So it may be nothing to do with you after all.

Remember that if you stall, put all your attention into restarting the car and then moving off as normal.