T Junctions Emerging

Having survived last week's driving lesson where my driving instructor sprung a surprised on me unexpectedly and made me deal with traffic, today I learnt a new procedure, dealing with T Junctions also called emerging.

Open Junctions


The first thing we did as always on our driving lessons was to recap on last week's skills by practising junctions turning left and right, dealing with some busy roads, including those controlled by traffic lights, making sure I could move off under pressure of cars behind me without stalling the vehicle. I wasn't perfect, but my ADI said I was making steading progress learning to drive and that it was time to introduce a new topic.

As usual out came the lesson briefing manual, and I was told how to identify a T Junction by either seeing houses at the end of the road, the upside down triangle road marking, the give way sign or the double short lines painted at the end of the road.
I would still need to use the MSPSL routine on this junction, and initially will be stopping, then using LADA to judge if it is safe to proceed.

Look to the right, left and then right again.
Asses the situation, noting if there is a safe gap in the traffic and other conditions around. My instructor stressed the importantance of giving way to traffic on the main road, including those coming from the left if neccessary (buses, lorries or HGVs that might need the extra space).
Decide on what you are going to do.
Act on your decision, emerging into the T junction only when you can see it is safe.

We then started to practise, beginning with open junctions where we had some visibility into the road before we got to the give way line, even though we still stopped for the first 3 or 4 attempts.

Closed Junctions




With almost half of the driving lesson gone, my driving instructor pulled me over on the left, and said we would now drive to a place where we would be able to deal with closed T junctions, having to emerge where there is very limited visibility, using peep and creep routine and later on if there was time, also go to a junction with a stop line.
My instructor told me that it is very easy to fail the DSA practical test at closed T junctions if I approached too fast, did not use LADA properly, or got pressurised by other road users.

1 comments:

Driving-Lessons-Wirral.com said...

Being pressured by other drivers can be a big problem at all times, not just on test. I'm sure your instructor will give you plenty of coping strategies for this problem

http://www.driving-lessons-wirral.com

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