I have been unfortunate enough to get lulled into a false sense of security formed by the continuos playing of Gran Turismo. These are the best games ever made, forget chess and Halo 3, there is nothing more satisfying than beating your best time 'round the Nurburgring in a Golf GTi. However, driving a real car in the real world is literally nothing like playing a slightly outdated but still much loved Gran Turismo 4 game. The first thing that will get you is trying to get into the drivers seat, it is an alien experience. Having stepped into the near side seat for so long, getting into the drvers seat is still a clumsy eperience for me. For some reason there's a steering wheel in my way which I have to negotiate past, and my left leg is unsure of itself, having always relied on the right leg stepping in first.
This is nothing, I repeat nothing compared to the shock you're going to get next. You have to turn to your right to get the seatbelt! Doing the little, subtle and deft shift to the left that allows one to see the seatbelt and therefore grab it was an art which I had mastered over the years, and now I have to go to the right! This is a cruel world I admit, but this is just mean. Here's where things get complicated. Your instructor will tell you to do various things, and you will soon be moving. And, and you've stalled... ok, don't panic. Clutch down, select neutral, restart the car, push down the clutch and go into first. This is the common pitfall with every driver, I tend to stall when I'm doing too many things at once, but as they say, practice makes perfect.
When you're up and running for your first time driving, changing gear will feel like the hardest thing in the world. When I changed gear the first few times, I'd make a hash of it; either letting go of the clutch too quickly, or not balancing the accelerator and the clutch well. As you do this more often, you will start to know what to do. Things gradually become more automatic.
Sooner or later you will approach something called a corner. These are rare, exotic things only really found in Europe, and this is where the great big round thing in front of you comes into play. Turn it to the right, and the car will move right, and well, you get the picture. The thing that you have to learn when steering is that you only need so much of it, depending on your speed and the severity of the corner. This seems obvious, but it will be tricky the first few times. Using the D-pad on a PS2 controller will give you full steering left or full steering right, so nevigating a corner in a game requires pressing the left or right button several times. In a real car, this is not the case. Steering is a smooth, fluid action, which prevents your passengers/driving instructor from vomiting over you.
Some corners are at such an angle that the A pillars will severly inhibit your view of the road. When I first experienced this, I was shocked and awed that after all this time cars have been on the road, not a single manufacturer has successfully brought an end to this problem. The solution is to of course try and look past the pillars, which requires some peering past them. It's not an ideal arrangement, and one which I hope to fix when I design cars.
Of what little reversing I have done, I can tell you that is is horrible and difficult. But then again I haven't done much of it and so I am very inexperienced with it. Junctions are what I am currently practising, and it takes an awful lot of multitasking. You have to start braking, and then the engine starts to grumble, clutch down, all the while looking left and right, palming into first. Use the clutch bite to crawl up to the dashed line, and if all is clear, let go of the clutch and onto the accelerator. You'll want to move into second pretty quickly if you've moved into a main road on the national speed limit.
I have also started doing roundabouts. Ominous and complicated, they are the current bain of my driving life. I can do U-turns, but anything else is still pretty difficult, just for heaven's sake use your mirrors and indicate!
That should be enough for now.
Roman
