Guide for learners

Your First Time on a Dual Carriageway

Faster roads frighten learners far more than they should, mostly because everything happens in a shorter window rather than because anything is harder. Here is what we do on the lesson where we take you onto one for the first time.
Your First Time on a Dual Carriageway

We build up to it

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Nobody gets taken onto a dual carriageway in their first ten hours. You need your gear changes to be automatic and your mirror checks to be habit, because on a slip road you will not have spare attention for either.

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The slip road is the whole lesson

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Match your speed to the traffic already on the carriageway before you reach the end of the slip road. Most learner mistakes come from joining too slowly and then having to accelerate hard in the lane. Look early, over your shoulder, and find the gap before you need it.

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Lane discipline

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Stay in the left lane unless you are overtaking, then move back. The right lane is not the fast lane, and sitting in it is both an offence and a very reliable way to collect a serious fault on a test that includes one.

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Leaving

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Start looking for your exit a mile out. Position, mirror, signal, then let the speed come off on the slip road rather than on the carriageway. Slowing down before you leave the running lane is the single most common thing we have to unteach.

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After you pass

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Motorways are now legal for learners with an instructor, and we would rather you did your first one with us than alone on a Friday afternoon. It is the same skill with more lanes and more lorries.

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First lesson, no commitment

Book one lesson and see

Tell us where you are and when you are free. We will match you to an instructor and call you back the same day.
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