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Skid pan test helps Emma get to grips with safety

Reporter and novice driver Emma Snedden has been taken for a spin – quite literally – in an attempt to improve her driving.

Emma, from the Lincolnshire Echo, failed her driving test 12 times before getting her licence two years ago and says getting into a car still makes her nervous.

The county’s roads have claimed 31 lives so far this year, so Emma went to see if a corporate driving day hosted by the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership and the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry could make her a safer driver.

She said: “Any form of motor vehicle could be a lethal weapon and, used with disrespect, that’s what they become.”

Her first practical task was a session on the skid pan – a smooth area of concrete covered in oil and water – to show her what to do if she got into a skid on the road.

She said: “At first, it is a very disconcerting. What I was doing with the wheel didn’t seem to correspond with what was happening on the ground. The wheel went one way, and the body of the car went the other.

“But soon, after constructive advice from driving instructor Ian Ball, I learned the way to deal with it.”

The second part of her day was a half-hour drive around the countryside with a traffic police officer.

“At the beginning of the session, he drove and pointed out all the potential hazards as he travelled. And when I took over at the wheel, I tried to see the world from his perspective,” she said.

“Drivers should be looking out for the hazards that could occur, the child that could run into the road, the walker that could get into a car and pull out too quickly.”

And Emma was pleased with the day’s result – which left her “confident but not over-confident”.

She said: “I felt I had been made aware of the many dangers on Lincolnshire’s roads and been given skills to deal with them.”

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