My C+E training diary

Day 3.

Much of the same again, lots of tight turns, a bit of motorway, lot’s of town work.

Today mostly Nick gave me as little instruction as he could and let me choose what to do at junctions and I pretty much nailed them all from memory.

Just a couple of times he had to tell me to get it moving where I was being maybe slightly cautious, not overly cautious but giving cars too much of a chance to zip out in front of me.

Handled all the idiots squeezing down the side of me no bother too.

Did a couple of reverses first thing, all good did a couple again at the end and the obligatory trailer drops as well, and just for a change drop the trailer and parallel park on the opposite side for a change.

Back at the test centre he asked me to park the trailer on the hard standing next to the other trailer that was parked where I dropped one yesterday, this time with a trailer on the right and I was dropping mine on the left. Nice and tight to the left of the concrete says Nick, Ok says I. (right and left as the view from my mirrors that is)

So i did what I would normally do, got it in a decent’ish position to start with and headed in the direction of the space, bit of right hand down and left hand down as required and again stuck it nice and straight and CM’s between the tyres and the edge of the hardstanding.

Then I heard “look at this we have a show off” lol and a lady he was talking to said that was very impressive driving. I have been shunting trailers for over a year so I do know how to park them. I am not big headed but I can park a trailer. He then asked me to go and park the “Jaffa” in the garage between the two M.A.N trucks as that was done for the day.

So sod it I may as well feel a little smug why the heck not lol

He says I can deffo do it Monday, I can drive the thing, I know the size, mirrors, shoulder checks, I can turn it and reverse it and most of my decisions were spot on. he did say to just be careful as my confidence has grown even more, and just said slow it down just a tad at times but other than that my driving it pretty much spot on.

He has been a great instructor throughout the whole deal so far, but we have also been able to hammer out all the possible test routes at the reversing took very little time to get that right for me being a shunter.

One more day of driving with Nick then test will be Monday, really looking forward to my test now, I know I can do it just need to keep doing what I am as Nick says.