John Lyon, advanced driving instructor and racing driver, has composed this quiz of 20 questions on driving skill and technique:
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/9197574/How-good-a-driver-are-you.html
I scored 11, how about you?
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Not convinced at all on this.
For starters, the car chooses when ABS braking is applied by means of sophisticated electronics and sensors. It knows better than the driver, and can react faster. You don't "engage" them. You brake, and the ABS works as appropriate to ensure the car doesn't slide, and that steering control may be retained. Similarly, modern automatic transmissions simply don't require you to "synchronise engine, gear and road speed". They have sophisticated microprocessor control units which see to that. It sounds to me like this guy last drove a car in 1962!
Oh, and the answer to Q8 is plain wrong! The limit point not moving simply tells you the corner is neither opening out or tightening up. It does not say the corner is "acute", "sharp" or otherwise. You can have a fixed limit point on a gentle bend on a 70 mph motorway - it's just a long way in the distance.
I don't think I will be buying this book, somehow.
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He sounds like a moron who is too pleased with all the complicated stuff he knows.
How can you tell if you have missed a good opportunity to overtake?
Who cares? It's too late. Go back and try again ?:)
He doesn't know what double declutching means. It doesn't match engine speed to road speed it matches engine speed to gearbox shaft speed. You don't need to double declutch to match engine speed to road speed, just adjust engine speed before engaging clutch the once.
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The man definitely sounds like he lives in a time-warp, probably has a neatly trimmed moustache and talks in a clipped English accent.
I'm surprised there wasn't a question on how to safely start your vehicle using the crank handle!
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The quiz is a bit silly, the questions badly worded. I don't think the guy is old-fashioned. If he was he would understand the true nature and purpose of double-declutching. I think he's a bit thick though, like a lot of people who think they are good drivers and a lot who actually are good drivers. Driving doesn't make very heavy demands on cognitive ability.
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It does state that he is/was a racing driver, and I think alot of the questions and answers relate to racing driving and not road driving.
I hope he knows and realises the difference when he`s behind the wheel in the public domain!
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Mostly fussy, pedantic, outdated tripe. Who on earth does double declutching nowadays? (For the answer, lift your telephone handset - sorry, 'receiver' - crank the handle vigorously and bark "Operator!" several times.)
Centre button for the horn? That's where the airbag's been for the last twenty years.
I thought advanced driving had got beyond this kind of fusty nonsense.
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My wife is an "advanced driver" and rarely fails to find an opportunity to mention that when a passenger in my car...
I am but a lowly normal licence holder but when she gets all superior I just have to gently remind her of the fact that she has had two write offs in her driving career and a handful of other minor comings together and I've had, well, none...
What's more, for such a qualified driver she's jolly good at kerbing wheels too...Not bad otherwise though I suppose...She's never had a speeding ticket or indeed a parking one which is not something I can truthfully claim.
:-)
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>> I am but a lowly normal licence holder but when she gets all superior I
>> just have to gently remind her of the fact that she has had two write
>> offs in her driving career and a handful of other minor comings together and I've
>> had, well, none...
Ha ha ha. Priceless. :)
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I did the quiz when I saw it in the paper......and scored spectacularly badly. A lot of the questions were badly worded and some defied any logic.
Now it could be that i'm hopeless at driving and have very little skill...or the quiz could be true carp.
I'd like to think that having been a police driver since 1984 and an advanced one since 1986, then a police driving assessor since 1999....that i'd at least score 50-60%.
I didn't.
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I think Paul Ripley is far more knowledgeable and able to explain things than this lyons person.
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I double declutch... But only in my vintage car as it has no syncromesh. Modern stuff, nah, just drive it.
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>> I think Paul Ripley is far more knowledgeable and able to explain things than this
>> lyons person.
I remember watching a video of Paul Ripley hoofing a mid 90's 911 Turbo around the Isle of Man TT course. I think it was an old Performance Car freebie.
The effortless speed, and the smoothness of his driving was just incredible. No drama or fuss, total control of the car, and incredible reading of the road and conditions. I saw this maybe 10 years ago, and I still remember it.
Seems like a nice bloke to boot. Very unassuming and down to earth.
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Double-declutching is used to synchronize the crankshaft speed with the gearbox input shaft speed. Some time in the 1930s synchromesh was invented, 'a device' as my Bentley's handbook called it, to perform this task automatically. Like my Bentley, most cars until the 1970s had synchromesh only on the higher ratios. First and reverse didn't have it, so if you had to change into first gear on the move, a rare event for a good driver, then you had to double declutch if you didn't want to risk an audible crunch.
The three-speed gearbox of my first car, a Citroen Light 15, had knackered synchro (it wore out you see like everything else) so needed double-declutching on all gearchanges given the wide gaps between ratios. This led to clutch cable problems but never mind that. Probably as a result of clumsy driving by previous owners, I later owned two cars - a Skoda Estelle and an Arna - that had synchromesh damaged on one or more gears. I could drive them all right but not everyone could.
I still DD when changing into first on the move (it does happen sometimes). Can't break the habit. I often wish that like Slidingpillar or a Bugatti owner, I had a car that demanded this seldom-needed but satisfying skill. One doesn't have that many after all.
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I read the quiz last saturday and thought about mentioning it here, but didn't get round to it.
Who knows, possibly in the context of the book the quiz might make more sense, but as it was presented in the DT it seemed utter garbage whichever way you sliced it. Certainly I would think from the comments here the quiz and/or article has done more to discourage people from buying the book.
If I were a memeber of a public library, and if they could get a copy, I might look at it out of curiosity, but nothing in the DT made me want to read it for its own good, as it were
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I should have driven better today.Put my foot down a bit trying to get home before the rush hour.Went to close passsing a cyclist.Slap on wrist for me.
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>> Slap on wrist for me.
Yes Dutchie, I don't blast past them a foot away any more either. Give them a wide berth and often even back off a bit except in dense London stuff. Treat them almost like skittish ponies.
What drives me up the wall is country mimsers who don't know it's legal to cross a double white line to pass a cyclist. Some people go too far.
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Hmmm. Didn't do spectacularly well. Advanced driver since 1984 and still hold a response ticket. Some of his definitions were out compared to Roadcraft but the sentiment was the same.
Advanced driving has developed and not as rigid as it was due to advances in car technologies and traffic conditions.
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I should have driven better today.
The most important words in any driver's vocabulary, Dutchie, even if we use them only to ourselves.
I had an ISHDBT moment on my way to work this week, born out of annoyance with a too-close follower in a 40 zone. After a bit of NSL I had a big gap in front and decided to use some of it to leave my friend behind. She didn't respond, but I then found I'd overestimated the speed of the block of traffic ahead of me and was closing on it so fast that I had to brake. Bad form; I drive that road every day and should know by now there's no point being in a hurry.
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I try hard and learn everyday.I have been driving for thirty years in the UK and abroad.My problem is inpatients. I like to make a move on.You are right about being in a hurry it isn't worth it.
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I am glad to hear the comments here. I scored very low, and thought the questions very odd.
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How good a driver are you? John Lyon quiz - DP
