Feeling rotten

bakes0310

bakes0310

bakes0310

Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2004
Posts
13,729
Hi all just venting feeling sorry for myself. I'm a new driver with about 3 weeks of driving under my belt. I passed my driving test last year in February. The day I passed I don't step into a car since November where I had a week of driving. Then I stopped and didnt drive again till this February and that about a week. Fast forward today and I've had minor knock and scraped the car near one of the front lights with a bit of plastic coming off the light. Didn't have a chance to test the lights but looking at it looks fine but I guess I'll need a new cover just incase it rains.

Gutted with myself been very unproductive at work today. I know I'm being too hard on myself but I can't help feeling like this.
 
I wrote off my first 2 cars, its all part of the learning experience :D

Don't worry about it. I would think that not many people get through their first year without at least putting a scratch on their car.
 
If you haven't driven much since passing your test, and you feel like you have lost confidence - might be worth contacting your driving instructor and having a couple of refresher sessions, just to help you build your confidence.

As above though - nobody is perfect (otherwise there would be no incidents).

As long as no-one was hurt, and no-one else's property was damaged, then chalk it up and move on - Cars aren't worth getting upset over.
 
Thanks guys I just need to drive the car everyday and not have these 3-6 month gaps. No choice anyway I sold my motorbike at the weekend leaving me with my partner's car, luckily it's an old banger (the car) and has some learning knocks on it already.
I have 6 years road experience being on the motorbike so I'm confident on the road. It's just that a car is a bit bigger and that's why I had the knock, thus knocking my confidence.
I'm not scared to get in the car, it's just I'm waiting around for work to finish and then I can get in the car and drive, need to get behind the wheel asap before my bottle goes.
 
I'd spend an evening just driving around, especially on roads you know well. Find some empty car parks and practise parking, this will help to get your bearings. Even just driving in and out of some of the car parks themselves is an experience.
 
I pranged my first car in the first 3 weeks of driving it, nothing major just got my angles wrong and clipped a concrete post in a car park.

Felt awful at the time too, wanted to punch myself in the face repeatedly, but its a learning experience.
 
best thing you can do for confidence is drive. Jump in the car on a Saturday morning, full tank of petrol and go explore. Motorways, towns, country roads.

You'll soon be feeling better.

Accidents happen. I wrote my Gti off just before Xmas in the snow. tootling along an A road at 30mph behind a bus and a lorry. A pick up quickly approaches a junction to my left, my attention was on that, looked up and the lorry was skidding to a halt and I slowly slid under his back end. Lots of space between us but it was downhill. Airbags didn't even go off and I drove it home despite the damage. There was no one to blame for it. Lots of room and slow speeds but just bad luck.
 
At least your insurance didn't go up! The first 4 years of driving I had 1 minor prang a year, two at fault, two non fault. My insurance went from £550 to £2000, on a Civic 1.5!!!!

Granted that was 10+ years ago, but still...


Your actual driving experience begins after you pass your test. You should fully expect to make mistakes. But if you realise them, then you're becoming a better driver after each one. Give it 5 years and you'll be all the better for it.
 
I have been driving 3 years now, driven many different cars and not crashed until I got a brand spanking new 320d hire car through work and crashed it into a wheelie bin because it's rear parking sensors, which I was taking advantage of, didn't seem to pick it up. I felt so bad, and worried about what will happen. Hire company didn't even notice it when picking it up, now I laugh about how much I was panicking about it. AND I haven't hit one since :D
 
Cleisthenes said:
I reversed into a bin just after I'd passed my test, without I still say it was my friends fault who was seeing me back!
Click to expand...

I was so near to scraping a (very) expensive car 2-3 days after passing my test - was reversing out of a parking spot at a local garage to put the car onto one of those lift up things for inspecting/working underneath can't remember why and forgot there are 4 corners to a car.

Combined with inexperienced it was the first time I'd tried to reverse and turn into very precise placement having to get the wheels onto the narrow runner things on the lift so I was a bit distracted by worrying over it. I was watching the back and totally forgot one side would swing out as I turned it was only because some instinct kicked in telling me I was forgetting something that made me stop and take stock of the situation less than 1cm from making contact. (IIRC but might be mixing it up with another situation I then noticed the 4-5 people who'd been waving at me trying to alert me that I'd been totally oblivious to).
 
Get out and about more and build your confidence

I drove my friends bmw x5 around Perth Australia with only about 6 months driving experience, going from a small fiesta to a big automatic 4x4 on unfamiliar roads with slightly different driving etiquette was a bit daunting but after a few hours in its easy

Go out for a few hours practice , a couple of days should get you more at ease
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom