Damon Hill wants 55mph motorway limit......

[stephend]

Originally Posted by Sailor 64

Many, many years ago I was taught to drive by an ex Met Police instructor. He not only taught me to pass my test but taught me how to drive - two entirely different things IMHO. As I only ever had 2 hour lessons - at least 20 minutes away from the area of the test center - we would cover some miles each week. In built up areas everything was absolutely by the book. Out on the open road, when conditions permitted, the general instruction was "Get your foot down! When you pass your test - which you will do - the first thing you're going to do is see just how fast your dad's car really goes, so you might as well know how to drive at that speed!" I very quickly learned that "Get your foot down" didn't just mean accelerate through the 60mph mark in 5th! It meant dropping down into 3rd and flooring it! Yee ha! Get settled down to a steady ton (or so) and then the random questions would come - what was the colour of the last car that went the other way? How many miles to #####? [moving the mirror] Whats the colour of the car behind? If I got a question wrong, or I hesitated in giving an answer, I had to slow down to 60 / 70, get some more questions right before being told to "Get your foot down". Might not be right but I learned how to observe traffic, road signs and everything else! A habit I maintain to this day.

Not quite as extreme as your guy, but my driving instructor was ex-Police class 1 as well. Mostly, we pootled around town, doing everything by the book. But the one time I persuaded him to take me out on A-roads, that changed. He was really encouraging me to go for overtakes (this in a Mk2 diesel Fiesta, mind!): I wasn't too confident, and he could tell. Eventually, I plucked up courage and blasted (noisily!) past somebody, and got flashed by an oncoming motorbike. "What you flashing for? You got loads of bloody room!", said my instructor. By now I was up to 80 mph in a 60 limit, in his driving school car. "Oops," I said, "I'd better slow down a bit!". "No," he growled back, "you'll be doing this once you pass your test, might as well learn how to do it properly" ...

Edit: the first time I took the RoSPA test, my examiner was a Police motorbike instructor. I happened to be taking the test in a Fiesta 1.0 hire car. It couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, and I wasn't familiar with it anyway - and again, the main thing I got ticked off for was not taking overtakes... Fond of their "making progress", that fraternity!