How to Judge the Width of your Car - Narrow spaces and staying in your lane

in this video i'm going to take my learner car out to show you how to judge the sides of your car one of my earliest memories was actually when i was around about four or five years old sitting in the front with a child seat of my dad's datsun bluebird estate from 1979 which i actually happen to have a brochure of this machine here because i'm a bit of a car nerd not exactly the most impressive machine but as a very young toddler it was a car with wheels and it moved so it's wonderful but the memory wasn't that great because i remember sitting there thinking ah we're gonna hit the person we're gonna hit the oncoming car we're gonna have a crash but of course we didn't and a lot of the people i teach to drive and i'm sure a lot of you probably feel the same way sometimes you're driving down the road and you feel like you're going to hit the oncoming car which is why driving instructors are permanently trying to stop their pupils from driving into the curb most people always want to drive to left rarely do they want to drive to the right that does happen but that's normally when they're focusing on the people walking on the pavement rather than the oncoming cars and herein lies the problem if you try to judge the sides of your car which is exactly what those two examples are trying to do that's what actually causes the problem so you can't judge the sides of your car but there is a solution firstly i'll show you why it's hard to judge the sides of your car using this head cam now if you look out the front window you can see the kerb comes all the way over here somewhere in the front window on the dashboard looks like we're on the curb but i can assure you we're not we are actually next to the curb and also the white line on the right looks like it comes through the dash around about here as well so that lane looks tiny the window looks huge the car looks huge well that's the problem what's the solution well here's the secret most experienced drivers don't think about the car when they're driving they think about themselves they drive themselves down the road because the car looks so much bigger than it actually is from your perspective and if you're in a country such as this country where your steering was on the right you're on the right of the car you just imagine yourself walking down your lane with your left leg in the middle of your lane you guide yourself down the road and the car follows if you're in the country which sixty percent of the world are where the steering wheel is on the other side you'll use your right leg because your right leg will be the leg nearest the center of your car but you may be thinking what about the car the car's so much bigger than you are how can you imagine yourself walking down the road and that's safe because you're tiny compared to the car this is how you do that well what i do is i use myself to judge where to place the car i'm not actually using myself to judge how wide the space is i know this space is wide enough for a car i can see that blue car would fit in the space so i know that that space is wide enough also i know the lane on this road is wide enough for a car so i don't actually worry about the width of the car because i know there's enough space so when i set off which i will do now just make sure it's safe to go all i'll do is control myself i'll steer the wheel until i feel like i am standing with my left leg in the middle of my lane which i am now then i know the middle of the car is in the middle of lane therefore i should be fine if you overthink things and start thinking about the side of the car you'll get into trouble and it does take confidence to do this when you're not confident you will overthink things but as confidence grows you'll trust that it works so can i fit past the black car yes i can because i can easily fit the black car in the space what about with this red car freeze the red car there can you fit the black car in that space now i don't think so it looks too narrow so i wouldn't go but look to the right of the red car could the red car move over somewhat to make the gap bigger to make it easier for you to fit through if yes is the answer there's nothing wrong with you encouraging the oncoming car to move over and give you help to encourage the oncoming car to move over to give you space you should get a bit closer to that oncoming car don't go head-on with them this is not a game of chicken just get a little bit closer if they comply and start to move over that's great you're opening up your space you're making the gap bigger so you can fit if they don't comply and they stay stubborn where they are then just wait until they've passed before you go through don't be dangerous and this is because most drivers aren't actually thinking about you they're most likely in their own world driving down the road if you get yourself out there a little bit so they notice you they may think oh look someone's trying to fit through here and then they can help you out i'm now going to drive down the road with the head cam to show you what it looks like when i go through some narrow gaps i'm not going to show you the whole clip because that would be boring i will skip to the important bits here goes so can i fit past this white car can i fit the black bmw in the gap just i could so i would do that very slowly so i'm actually going to accelerate here i'm only doing about 10 miles an hour so i can fit next to the blue car that's coming lots of space there there's lots of space next to that red car i can fit the red car in the gap but with the white car can i fit the red car in the gap yes i can so i know this car will fit in the gap you see i'm not judging the width of my car i'm not judging the sides of my car i'm judging the size of the gap and that's what you've got to try and do can i fit in that gap that's that's doable i can fit the car in the gap i can fit this part car in the gap so i could it was quite small so i did go slow i will only go quick if it's a very easy gap if it's a smaller gap i will go slowly and if the gap looks a little bit dodgy possibly not quite big enough i won't risk it i won't go if you're not sure what i mean by gap i'm talking about the space you need to drive through between the parked car and the oncoming car that's the gap you've got to go through like a gap in the wall so to speak i can see that i can fit past the bike because that space is really big but where there's a van on the right it gets more narrow that's quite a narrow gap so i have slowed down to about 14 miles an hour now oh look what we have we have a bus so here i'm actually going to slow down and wait for the bus to come through because that gap doesn't quite look big enough for me that looks a little bit small so i'll let them come through first with the car i could just about squeeze but there's no need squeezing when there's only one car if the cars were continuous i would squeeze through and that applies to normal driving squeeze through tight gaps when you need to don't squeeze through when it's not busy if there's a need to yes try and get the traffic flowing but if it's not busy you may as well just wait this is obviously a very narrow gap i can just about fit through there i'm already committed to there's nowhere for me to wait got the white van here coming i can fit the white van in the space i can fit the jaguar coming in the space so i know there's enough space for me i'll just position myself in the middle of that space oh this should be fun i can fit the light blue car in the gap and most cars are a similar width yes they vary by i know 20 30 centimeters but you're not going to be judging gaps that accurately accurately anyway mince my word there a little bit accurately you're going to be judging it a bit more rough you can easily fit that white car in the space for example so any car of any width is going to be able to fit in this space fortunately the oncoming truck has seen me coming they're waiting to let me finish that's very good of them that's what they should do because there's definitely not enough room for two cars on this bit here i'll say thank you and there is a gap big enough next to him i can fit the white car in the space i can fit in the space and obviously i can see this space here is definitely wide enough for one car so i'll just go down the middle of it when it is a narrow space big enough for one car don't go to the left of it because you just encourage people to try and squeeze through that's almost like telling them to come get yourself in the middle of that space to tell them wait for me please i need to come through same here this is really big enough for just me no incoming cars so i'm not going to be going near the curb like this encouraging them to come through that's what learners do learners see an oncoming car and they think let's get out the way but sometimes you need to make sure you're bigger and get in the way to get the message across that they need to wait i can fit next to the black car because i can easily fit the black car in the space so i'll just go through i am going to go quite slow here though because there's a bend and someone could come around that bend quite quickly and i am on the wrong side of the road they will need to let me finish it's not my responsibility now it's their responsibilities let me finish because i am committed so now i've shown you how to judge reasonable gaps gaps that are easily big enough for your car how do you judge the gaps that are really small where you've got to go through a really tight gap where you're at risk of losing one of your wing mirrors well that is the only time when you're actually going to try and judge the sides of your car you do it when you're parking and you do it when you're going through very small gaps and the only way you can do that safely is to go incredibly slowly there's two things you can do one is you can actually look at your wing mirrors when you get close to the object to see if you're going to clear the object or hit the object if you're really slow you'll be able to stop before you hit it and another way is reference markers out the front window to set a reference marker firstly you need to carefully park near the curb and then see where the kerb touches the bottom of the window where the kerb touches the bottom of the window is now a reference point so you know when you're close when the curb gets that close you know you're close don't let the curb get too close or too much to the right because obviously you're gonna hit it and you can do that for both sides of the car so now i've turned the car around and carefully parked close to the curb you can see i'm relatively close to the curb there and then i can use the bottom of the window as a reference marker remember roughly where that curve is at the moment with the window then i know that's where i'm close reference markers set don't transfer them to other cars because they won't work in other cars they'll just work in your particular car it can be useful i will warn you though don't use these reference markers when you are going at speed you need to look up the road when you're driving at speed reference markers are only for parking and only for very slow maneuvers or going through very slow gaps certainly less than two or three miles an hour now i'm going to turn down this road on the left look how narrow that looks i'm certainly going to need both sides of the road to get in there so i'm going to pause first get first gear and let anyone out before i go in looks like no one's coming out so let's go through and this is where it gets quite narrow this is where the gap gets so narrow you may have to check the size of your car i'm okay with this gap with the black and the blue car but it's where this silver one is after the pigeon that's watching me that looks a bit more narrow through that gap i may actually have to slow down with the clutch down if you notice i'm doing very slow speed one or two miles an hour and i can actually see very clearly there i'm missing the wing mirror on that side and i can get near this wing mirror on the left and i can see i'm missing it on that side i'll continue to check i continuously check both sides don't just look at one side because if you become transfixed on one side you'll probably hit the other side now this one's not too hard let's try and find one that's a bit harder oh that looks a bit nasty getting in there let's try and get in this little gap there see how that looks so okay just about i've got my reference marker on the left for the curb i'm not even doing one miles an hour and i've definitely got space on the right there the key here is control if you can control your car really slowly you can do this you've got to have good clutch control first before you deal with narrow gaps you can easily clear that wing mirror there and my reference marker on the left is fine as well it's to the left of my marker looks a bit wider here i can probably actually come all the way off the clutch and do more than four miles an hour because i can squeeze through here without having to check the sides if i have to continuously check the sides like this it's clutch down job it's very very very slow you can't have the clutch up because you'll be too fast and i don't like to take that kind of risk of knocking someone's wing mirror off now this looks a bit more narrow here with this audi so clutch down again to get a bit slower i can see my reference markers okay on the left the right looks good left looks good right yep definitely good there not too hard actually i've had a lot harder than that we'll see if we can make it a bit harder it is getting a bit more narrow down there it's a bit better here with that fiat the fiesta's got his wheels sticking out but that looks okay i can still keep the clutch up there actually but this black car now this black car this is the narrow one that is barely big enough for a car i mean you've got quite a handy guide here you've got that red car in front of us is it a brown or a red i don't know something brown or red you can barely fit that car in that gap so no i can barely fit in that gap that car is tiny bit bigger than mine so if i move forwards now i can see i'm right on my reference marker that's like parking distance from the kerb and if you look at my wing mirror that is really quite close there and it's actually setting off my reverse sensors saying i'm too close to the objects on the right so i'll go through here very slowly zero miles an hour just using clutch control checking both my reference point on the left and the wing mirror on the right and now i'm clear and i have a lovely narrow gap that's my rear reverse sensor going off now because my reverse sensors actually do the sides as well as the front and back so as my rear went past the narrow pinch set the rear side one off as well and this one looks okay so we're out the woods now job done so to summarize use yourself to judge the position of the car use the size of the gap and other part cars up the road to judge the size of the gap you judge the size of the gap not the width of your car if you're in a really really narrow space then you can use reference markers but only use reference markers when you're slow because it takes your eye off the road and you won't be able to stay in a straight line if you start using reference markers at speed and because when you're using a reference point you're looking at only one side you miss the other side also if it is a really narrow gap and there's actually a car there instead of just a curb you can actually look at the wing mirror on either side regularly to see if you're gonna clear the space but again you're gonna be very slow you're gonna have to clutch down definitely maybe one possibly two miles an hour sometimes my speedo registers zero because i'm not even doing a whole mile an hour as i go through such a gap well i hope this video helps you get through narrow spaces in the road and makes you more confident at judging the width of your car not that you're actually judging the width for your car you're judging the space if you think it does please give the video a thumbs up and check out my sponsors in the description collingwoodconfused.com collingwood are brilliant if you are learning to drive and you want to insure yourself on somebody's car because you can do that without affecting their policy taking away some of the stress of learning to drive because you're not going to affect their no claims bonus if something bad was to happen if you use the link in the description you will get a financial benefit and it will support the channel if you want to insure your own car check out confused.com by time and time again find them to be one of if not the cheapest comparison website out there particularly for new and inexperienced drivers but generally they come 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Channel: Conquer Driving

Views: 2,847,586

Keywords: how wide is my car, how to judge the width of your car, how to know if you can fit in a narrow gap, how big is my car, how to stay in your lane, how to fit in narrow spaces, how to judge the left of my car, how to judge the right of your car, staying in the middle of your lane, trick to judge the width of your car, tips for position in the road

Id: tIo8Cv7lY0c

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020