Tips for Young Drivers

My niece is learning to drive at the moment.  Learning to drive these days is an expensive pastime, not only paying for the driving lessons after you pass, the cost of your car insurance and road tax.

There are some importance choices that you have to make when you choose to learn to drive and the first of those is choosing your driving instructor.  When I first decided to learn to drive, rather than getting recommendations, I choose someone from the Yellow Pages who had a cheap hourly rate.  Big mistake.

I was a very nervous driver in the beginning and for the first and second driving lesson; I did not even manage to proceed beyond driving on the car park.  What I needed was encouragement and patience.  What I got was ridicule and being told that there was little point in carrying on because I was wasting my money and his time.  He told me that I would never be able to do it.

That is a harsh thing to tell a seventeen year old that is nervous behind the wheel to begin with.  Whilst I was nervous, I was also determined so I decided to not listen to him, but instead fire him.  I got a new instructor; this time one who came highly recommended.  It may have taken me 18 months to pass my test, but I got there. 

The other importance choice that you have to make is selecting your car insurance provider.  There is no getting away from it; insurance for new drivers is expensive.  Thankfully though, if you do your research, you can find some great deals.

Companies like More Than have policies specifically with young drivers in mind that can assist with the cost of insurance by monitoring your driving by way of their Telematics Driving Style Score. 

When you buy their young driver policy they arrange to have a small Sm>rt Wheels Box fitted to your car which monitoring various aspects of your driving such as speed, smoothness and usage. Over the course of the year, you can earn back up to 10% of your premium by way of cashback.

By having the Sm>rtBox monitor your driving this will not only save you money but also encourage you not to take risks, speed or brake excessively because you know that the safer you drive, the more cashback you can get!

Do you have any stories from when you learned to drive? 

*Post written in collaboration with More Than however all opinions are my own

Bus Journeys

Up until 4 years ago I was your typical car driving commuter.  Blasting up and down the motorway every day was not a chore, it was something I loved doing.

Due to a combination of being moved to an office much closer to home, the lack of parking and an incident with my car, I made the transition of going to work on the bus.  I wasn’t happy about it in the least but was the best solution.

It wasn't a solution I was happy with, but the main reason was that my car or more worryingly myself, had been targeted by local thieves.  My car was broken into 10 times over the course of 2 months and by the end, combined with the move in work, the bus became the most viable option.

I have shared some of my tales of my bus journeys on Twitter before, but someone suggested that I share them on the blog.  So here's life on a bus journey.

You tend to get two types of drivers on the buses.  The first type are nice, friendly and safe.  The other type use the bus as an extension of their penis and think that they are the only thing on the road.  The type that drives too fast and brakes too hard.  Standing on a bus trying to balance is not fun when the bus driver slams on and you nearly go through the windscreen.

Then there is the devil child.  EVERY BUS HAS ONE.  He has been on my bus every morning.  I am not sure of the age, around 7 I think and, apologies to the “all children are wonderful” bunch, but he is the devil's spawn.  His mother has no control over him and the bus driver has had to bring control on more than one occasion.

He shouts at the top of his voice, climbs all over, sometimes over you, runs up and down the aisle, knocking over bags and running over people’s feet.  The latter being me one day, the day after I had a foot tattoo.  Considering he took half my skin off I feel practically saintly for the fact I only screamed blue murder.

Then you get the tea time drunks.  You see them getting on the bus, you smell the booze on them and pray that they don’t sit next to you.  Some can be funny, giving you a little story or having a joke with you.  Others are the ones who carry an open bottle in their pocket which upturns over your expensive work coat.

There are also the “HELLO I’M ON THE PHONE” types.  Everyone will occasionally get a phone call whilst on the bus but I try my best to keep my voice down and be unobtrusive.  Plus of course I don’t want to advertise my business to a packed bus of strangers.  Some seemingly delight however in talking loudly on the phone.  What they are doing that night, how many girls they are going to screw over the weekend, how much they deserve a pay rise all the while disclosing confidential work details....   

They say the bus users are helping to save the planet by using public transport and not a car.  In this particular case I say screw the planet, and give me a goddamn car!  I miss my car.....