anyone see it?

How did you all do?

What do you think to gabby logan (the female presenter) :ok:

Yep, I saw it and scored against Mrs SN at home. I got 6 wrong and Mrs SN got 9 wrong. New found respect for those who take their theory tests, something I didn't have to do all those years ago!

hmmm -- they actually TRY to teach British drivers how to drive?? How droll ...... :cool:

Well, obviously I'm in love with Gabby . . . :O

. . . but I'm also very very scared to go out on the roads today !!!

I saw it too and have this simple question...

How many others knew the stopping distance, but in feet not metres?!?!?!?!?

Don't you think that was a very ageist question?!?!?


:\ (or is it just me - I'm not even that old either, but I didn't have to do a theory test when I got my license - thankfully!)

Didnt know the stopping distance at all myself.

Anyone know the formula how to work it out?

Load of garbage anyway - it all depends whether you have a Lotus or a beat up Ford Sierra.

Watched the prog but missed the last few minutes with the results. Can anyone tell me the score? Presumably the men won ;)

I got one wrong about overtaking horses with solid white line. Managed to guess the stopping distance in metres (i.e. dividing 240 ft by 3 and a bit!) but agree, v. ageist :)


Cheers

Whirlygig

Jinks;

In feet, it always used to be your speed plus 1/20 of your speed squared. The linear part is supposed to be reaction time and the squared part the actual braking distance.

So for 60 mph you get 60 +180 = 240 feet then divide by 3 and a bit for metres as wg says.

However, you only have to remember one figure: 70 mph has always been 100 yds/metres so shouldn't have been too hard to guess that the answer for 60 mph would be a bit less than 6/7 of 100.

Just memorising some theoretical stopping distances doesn't make you any better at driving, so I shouldn't worry about it too much. The distances are fairly arbitrary as they don't take into account persoanl alertness and reaction time, braking effectiveness, road surface, weather conditions etc. I use the 2 second rule myself, 3 seconds in wet conditions, and 4 seconds when conditions are really bad.

By which time you've hit the wall!
Bloody mathemeticians (again).:rolleyes:

Edited to say: ratsarse you got in before me!
Quite agree, two seconds is much easier.

I would love to drive Gabby.................did I say that out loud?

ratsarrse: you are absolutely right - what's important is the ability to judge distances out on the open road, not to be able to quote figures from a list.

How many drivers would be able to reply correctly if asked to point out an object that was 315 feet away ?

How many would be able to reply correctly if asked "could you stop from here before reaching that lamp post / tree / line ?" - in my experience, most drivers tend to vastly over-estimate the distance needed to stop at low speed, but they under-estimate it at high speeds.