Here I go!
Reverse parking I can do this!
Keeping an eye on those cones
I did it – reverse parking between the cones!
Concentrating on the mirrors!
What a great time trucking!
I really don’t know why but for years it was a dream of mine to get behind the wheel of a man size truck and to feel the power of those big machines!
Finally, to celebrate my sixtieth birthday my dream came true when I found myself at Blyton Park Driving Centre standing next to a Volvo truck attached to a 45-foot trailer. My first thoughts? “Oh, my goodness this is BIG”!
I was feeling both excited and apprehensive as I climbed up into the cab but determined to enjoy every second of this experience. Obviously, everything is on a bigger scale than in your average car, for a fleeting moment I did question how my arthritic hands would cope with the huge steering wheel!
If ever a man was perfectly suited to his job, then my instructor was, his patience, calmness, wit and way of explaining how the gears worked, how to use the mirrors and how to position the trailer for each manoeuvre completely put me at my ease and made it sound so doable.
After a couple of drives round the circuit came the heart stopping test; reverse parking between two lines of cones! I didn’t manage it so well on the first attempt mainly because I wasn’t turning the steering wheel fast enough, on my second attempt my instructor became quite animated and all I could hear was his instructions of turn it faster! faster! faster! Turning the wheel really was the hardest part.
However, between his instructions and my getting to grips with the steering I managed to
reverse perfectly between the lines of cones!
The slalom course came next which, take it from me is quite tricky when you have a 45-foot trailer behind you!
At one point my instructor did ask if I would like to slow down a bit……!
Was the experience all that I hoped it would be? Most definitely! It was exhilarating, exciting, fun and gave me a sense of achievement, I was quietly thrilled and proud that I had managed to reverse park into the marked parking ‘bay’!
The Truck Driving Experience is twenty minutes long, but I extended my voucher to forty minutes to get more out of it which I’m really glad I did.