DRIVEN TO DESPAIR

There was a time when people who now claim to know about cars couldn’t drive: a dim and distant prehistory when Jeremy Clarkson couldn’t tell his clutch from his…(let’s not go there).

After that came a period of knowing how to drive but not actually being allowed to and, before that finally happened, being officially taught how to drive.

For the purposes of this particular exercise, it will be assumed that you have no idea how to drive but would like to learn. Being able to drive is a fundamental prerequisite of the art of bluffing about cars, so let’s start with the basics: the stuff that makes a car stop and go.

The average car has a steering wheel, which is self-explanatory, a gear-selection lever and, where it has a manual gearbox, three floor-mounted foot pedals which, from left to right, are the clutch, brake and accelerator pedal. (An automatic does away with the clutch, but that will be addressed shortly.)

Making the car stop and go needs a certain amount of coordination between these elements, and getting everything in sync requires practice. Initially, that practice will involve finding an empty car park or country lane, sweaty palms, a screaming engine and a bunny-hopping car. But after teeth have been clenched and gears graunched, these things generally mesh in some sort of harmony and the car will start to do what you tell it.

At that point, you’ll have to learn how to use the other minor controls and the mirrors, so that other people know where you’re going and you know where you’ve been.

You’ll have to learn how to use the other minor controls and the mirrors, so that other people know where you’re going and you know where you’ve been.

Assuming you’re not at this stage yet, let’s return to the clutch, which in a manual car is the medium connecting the engine to the gearbox, which in turn transmits its power to the wheels. If the clutch was like a switch – either on or off – every time this happened the process would lead to a lot of jerking and stuttering, which is why the clutch applies the engine’s power progressively.

Starting from stationary with the engine off, having checked the car is not in gear, you turn the key and start it, push the clutch to the floor and slot it into first gear, then gently start to bring the clutch up until you hear the engine change pitch because the clutch is ‘biting’ (not as painful as it sounds) and the engine is slowing.

At this point you want to give the accelerator a gentle squeeze with your right foot to make it ‘rev’ a bit higher again as you keep releasing the clutch so that the engine doesn’t labour to a halt (known as ‘stalling’) instead of moving the car. You’ll be holding the steering wheel with your right hand (possibly for dear life), so that when the car does start to move it won’t roll into a ditch/hedge/solid object, while your left releases the handbrake – usually a lever between the seats – which will otherwise impede progress significantly.

Get that out of the way and your left hand can join the right, clamped to the steering wheel, as you stare gimlet-eyed at the road with Zen-like concentration, steer the car and prepare to change gear to go a bit faster.

This process is much as before, but involves taking your foot off the accelerator pedal first, excludes the handbrake and is faster, as you go ‘up’ the gearbox and the pace quickens. Going down it involves the same see-saw pedal movements as you shift into the lower gears.

Stopping means taking your right foot off the accelerator and planting it firmly on the brake, but don’t forget to disengage the clutch with your left foot or the engine will start fighting the brakes and keep trying to drive the car. A five-year course in physical coordination, under the personal supervision of an Olympic-standard gymnast, may not be enough to achieve all this with any guaranteed consistency but it should get you started down the right road.

TEACHING SOMEONE TO DRIVE

Free advice is worth all you pay for it, but if you’re a parent or partner who’s been asked by your loved one to teach them to drive, and relations are already a bit tense, don’t. Get someone else to do it. Wars have been started over less angst and conflict than that involved in slipping into the passenger seat and uttering the words, ‘Mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ to your nearest and dearest.

Should you ever have conversations with the potential pupil that contain the words, ‘You never listen to a damn thing I say!’, consider how this will translate to being in a car with that person driving it in circumstances where one wrong move will result in death or serious injury (probably by mutual throttling rather than a collision).

Teaching someone to drive involves a combination of courage, recklessness, dishonesty, acting and extreme concentration. You will have to pretend that you’re not desperate to wrench at the steering wheel, and that you’re not about to have a screaming fit because for the fifth time you’ve asked the novice driver to look both ways before turning right at a junction yet they haven’t, and it’s a miracle that you haven’t been flattened by a truck.

Not only do you have to show the person yanking at the steering wheel and stamping on the brake what they should do, you also have to anticipate what they, and everybody else on the surrounding roads and pavements, will do at the same time. If, on the other hand, you and the person who wants to be taught have the patience of saints, and you’re good at appearing relaxed when every sinew of your being is telling you to scream hysterically that you’re all going to die, then go right ahead.