You are listening to the Driving Confidence Podcast for drivers who want to be calm and confident on the road. We will be sharing tips, stories, and advice to beat driving nerves and anxiety and. Build your driving confidence whether you are just starting out as a learner or have had your driving license for years. If you want to transform how you feel about driving this podcast is for you. In this episode, we got some inspiration from a recent road trip that we did, where we were traveling up the motorway up to Scotland. And. Obviously we had lots of experiences on the way he didn't we Kev. I think you can call it experiences. We watched and observed. Lots of different types of drivers on the motorway. We did. And there were two. Experiences that really stood out for us. And it was to do with what lane you're on in the motorway. And we saw two very different examples. But actually neither were ideal or recommended. No. And I suppose the first one. I suppose I could call it. Hate is people that just stay in the middle lane or lane. To whatever you want to call it. It's it's the people that just stay in that lane. And they're only doing 60 miles an hour. Yeah. You know, and we had one of these people and it was a little bit busy behind us. It was clear in front. And we had to. Go from lane. Number one, we have to overtake this car. But. It made it really hard because there was cars going faster. And. We had to go from lane number one to lane. Number two. We have to slow down. Yeah. Allow cars to overtake us, which is it is okay. And then we have to accelerate, overtake him and come back all the way over to lane. Number one again. Yep. You know, And for me it's it's like what, what was the reason that person was staying in lane? Number two? Yep. Now I been the passenger. I was able to have a little look at the driver. And bless him. He wasn't. He wasn't young. He wasn't old. He was somewhere in the middle, but oh my God, he looked terrified. And he's body language was. I'm ripping the steer him. Well, his shoulders were up. He was just looking straight ahead. So completely tunnel vision. For his lane, not looking at anybody else and he looked terrified. Yeah, it didn't look. That he wasn't showing any confidence at all. And that showed. Potentially in the way he was driving. You know, Uh, for me, it's about rules, I suppose. Cause that's what I do. And, you know, he was staying in lane number two. But I don't aware of everything around him. I want to say chaos. But the confusion he was causing, because again, we had to go from lane number one to two to free back to two, back to one. But other people were coming up close behind us because this car was going so slow. And there was nobody in lane number one. So he wasn't overtaking anybody. And of course, what this means is some people like us follow the rules and we'll go. Lane one lane, two lane, three lane, two lane, one, but lots of people don't bother. They will just go straight up and. Undertaking. In lane one, and this is where the chaos comes in. And I could see why he was terrified because. He wasn't going very fast. We always go to the speed limit. So my guess is that he was doing something around 50. Um, somewhere in the fifties. Which means that even the lorries were going faster than. so when you've got all this traffic going at speed. Potentially on either side of you. It's sort of makes your car rattle and everything's coming up fast behind you. I'm guessing that the reason that he was driving in the middle lane was he felt that he was safe there, that he didn't have to overtake anything may be. He's maybe I'm making assumptions here, but maybe his thoughts were, if I go in lane two, I won't have to. Change lanes at all. And that will be easier for me, but actually it was having the opposite effect. It was making the journey more terrified. He would have been a lot happier. Driving in lane one. And then overtaken anybody that just happened to be going slower than him. And yeah, I mean, my, my thoughts were. Has this person been trained on motorways? You know, has this person. Cut to the driven on a motorway. Was this his first time driving and he'd just gone onto a motorway without realizing the rules or having the confidence to drive faster. We don't know. No, but it, from his body language and his driving behavior. I would suggest that it was. Almost alien to him to do that. Whereas if either. Training. Even just I found out that you can just stay in lane. Number one. I'm probably doing this 55 60 and he would have been fine. Yep. Absolutely. So. If you are one of those people that stay in the middle lane, because it's a bit scary. Get some lessons, you know, get some refresher lessons. We have loads of people. Come on this podcast. August send us messages. Saying that they are taking refresher lessons because they've never been trained. On a motorway. Or they were trained. Ages ago, and now they need to drive on a motorway and things have got a lot busier. So, my little tip is just seek some advice. Even if you are someone, what should I be doing? What lane should I do? What Glenn should I be in? What is the ethical of driving on a road? Or motivation. And if you are somebody who drives in lane two drives in the middle lane. How do you think about what your reasons are? What is the reason behind it. And if the reason behind it is to do with nerves, anxiety being scared, then our suggestion is that actually driving in the middle lane is probably making those nerves. And anxiety worse. I can guarantee. That that particular driver has now firmly reinforced his hate of driving on the motorways because that journey did not look. Pleasant. No, not at all. Not at all. And he's probably going to get to the end of his journey. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. However far has gone. I'm not sure how far we was going, but it was just something that we noticed that was the one. Yeah. One of the drivers. Try this. And then really quickly, I think within a half an hour or so we saw the opposite. Yeah, we saw, we saw someone sticking to the speed limits. You. He wasn't speeding at all. But what he was doing or should I say what he wasn't doing? Cause planet. And what he was doing. He was overtaking people coming back in overdose. But in between all the, he was heartbreaking because he was getting really close. Yeah. So we'd get close to people. Before overtaking them. And then he would overtake them. And then pull back in really quickly. Yeah. So he was laying down. And wasn't he? So he was, he was following the rules. If I, if I'm not overtaking anyone, I must be in. Lane one. But actually he was diving in, don't sit into lane. When, if you'd been looking ahead, it. He'd have seen that actually. Oh, look, I'm going to be in lane one for 30 seconds and then I'm going to have to pull out again. So he wasn't planning. He wasn't looking far enough ahead. And he was laying dancing. That's the only way I can describe it. But we use it. LN diving lane, Dom saying, I don't know. It was again, very stressful. For him. I'm quite stressful for us to watch, because we were like, whoa, what's he going to do now? Well, it was, it was quite interesting for us because we was, we were doing the same speeds as him, but we never touched the brakes. And, we was able to overtake, but also come back again. And this person was. I don't know wherever we was trying to show people what lane they should be in. And maybe it was that maybe it wasn't, I don't know. That was the feeling I got, the feeling I got was that he was trying to make a point. That. It felt like he was trying to make a point to other people that look, you're not overtaking anyone. There's a gap you can fit in. You should be in it. But actually, if it's, it's got to be longer than a car's gap to go into it. It needs to be. Worth your while or doesn't. I mean, you mentioned 30 seconds. It wasn't even 30 seconds. He was in that gap for about five seconds. And then. And it was, it was very strange. And I don't know if you. Unless we could actually talk to that driver. I don't know his reasons. But it was like, Plus vaping in here. It made us think about, okay. That stay back from this person. Yeah, let's give him some more room. The other than the room that we'd given anyway, but let's just be a little bit more careful, cautious. With this person. Because it was unpredictable and I think that's a great word for him. And he was just so unpredictable about what he was doing. Yeah, you didn't know what he was going to do next because he was just darting in and out of spaces. The. Didn't make sense. And we talk a lot about anticipating what's going to happen. There was none of that with this driver. And if you can't anticipate someone. Give yourself more room. Yeah. Just make sure that. One being extra cautious. We're not being a danger, we're not slowing right down. I'm just going to be making sure I give him extra space. Potentially start thinking about, yeah. He's not seeing that glory up there. You're going to pull out again. But he was making the decisions very late. His signal was very, very late. And, you know, you had to decide what speed he was doing in relation to the others to decide what he was going to do, because he was leaving things so late and it just made it very confusing. From a lots of people. Yeah. So. We gave advice for the early driver about nerves and anxiety. This one. We clearly didn't have any nerves and anxiety, but wasn't looking far enough ahead. Wasn't planning. For the next steps. So that would be our advice to this driver. Yeah, it is. How far are you looking ahead? What. And then are you anticipating your speed compared to the others? And then can you make those decisions earlier? So that you don't have to really stay on a motorway. You just touch the steam. At those speeds that we're doing. And your journey becomes a lot less stressful. Yeah. And you don't have to die. Into every single gap. No, no, not at all. But we've just thought we would share that with you. And again, next time you're out driving or you are watching have a look at people, you know? Oh, can you anticipate what they're going to do? You know, what's the reason for them staying in the lane. You know, is it knowledge? They just don't know, or is it. That they feel safer. Having a look at people. That might be doing the unpredictable things. Yeah, and always give yourself enough space so that if you can't predict what they're going to do, You have time. To make decisions as, and when you need to exactly. Space and time. Great. So how. Sharon. Our experience is helpful for you. Maybe we've picked up on one of your pet hates as well. Let us know. Uh, contact details are in the show notes as always. Um, so until next time, have a great day, whatever you're doing. If you have enjoyed our podcast, did you know, we can also help you get back on the road to driving confidence? If you want to have the feeling of being safe. Be able to go shopping without relying on public transport. Create more time in your daily schedule. Become a confident driver. Visit friends or relatives that live further away. Drive to and from places of work. Feel safer when driving on faster roads. Then our coaching packages will help you create the easy to follow action plan to your driving confidence. Using our unique drive Calm system within our coaching sessions backed up by the free access to the confident drivers website and all the wonderful tools and techniques it has to offer. You will feel confident that you can take that first step in getting back driving. So if you'd like to find out more information, go to the confident drivers website.