Learning to drive: Day 5

Amanda confesses multi-tasking skills like, signaling & turning while braking are difficult for her, and still has lots of questions about passing. We are discussing the choreographed movements necessary to pass when we encounter a slow moving dump truck in the right lane in light morning traffic. The truck is moving about 10 mph under the speed limit, and rather than follow it all the way to school, we use this as an opportunity to work on passing skills. She makes a head check over her left shoulder and swerves slightly to the left then nervously brakes and swerves back in behind the heavily laden truck. We repeat this several more times, and she gains confidence, eventually finding an opening in traffic is large enough to compensate for her slow response time. She signals, turns into the left lane and hits the brakes! "No, take your foot off the brake, and give it gas!" I say quickly. Nervously she accelerates and pulls slightly ahead of the huge truck. Now moving at a good 10 mph faster than the truck, she asks, "Is it OK to get over now?" I think, it's a little close but remembering the multiple attempts to get into the left lane, and rationalizing that we are moving faster than the truck, I say, "OK." She quickly signals, turns back into the right lane, and hits the brakes HARD! "No, NO, NO, Hit the GAS!" I shout nervously. Obviously the truck was able to hit the brakes harder than Amanda, so she gets another passing grade. This concludes another 30 minutes behind the wheel.