Week 12: Driving

For the last clinical of the semester, I was up bright and early and out in the ambulance. This week we did a bit of pylon work and practiced driving on various roads; city streets, highways, and residential streets.

Using Your Mirrors

Prior to driving the school ambulances, I primarily used my side and rear windows when needing to see my blindspot and reversing. This is not an option with the school ambulance and you must rely on the side mirrors to see both your blindspot and reverse. This requires a level of trust in that the mirrors are doing their job and ensuring that you as the driver have correctly adjusted the mirrors to see properly. I have found it a bit nerve-wracking so far to rely on my mirrors. This week, when practicing the reverse serpentine, I made it around the first pylon and then when going for the second pylon I messed up three times in a row because I couldn't see the pylon in the mirror. The mirror had become tilted and was not working correctly. Once we stopped to readjust the mirror, I was able to complete the full serpentine twice with very little difficulty. I saw the pylons exactly when I needed to and was able to rely on my pylons for when to turn the wheel and straighten up. This experience of not having the mirrors work correctly and then work correctly gave me a new level of confidence in the mirrors and my ability to use them for reversing!

Skills Over the Summer

Over the summer I want to focus on increasing my comfort with using my mirrors. I have a 100m driveway at home so my plan is to reverse up and down the driveway everyday to/from work using only my side mirrors. I am also going to practice parallel parking and reversing into parking spots using primarily my mirrors. I want to do this on busier roads so that I can get more comfortable using these driving techniques when there are other vehicles around. I would also like to practice serpentine pylons as that is a test often required by services. There is a big parking lot near my house where I can go set up pylons. My goal is to do this at least every other week to maintain and improve the skill.