*12s 6d well spent
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When I was learning to drive and we arrived at the "emergency stop-, which was about the only enjoyable feature of the whole business, my instructor was quite unequivocal. "Bang both feet down hard and grip the steering wheel" was his advice. This certainly produced satisfying noises and black marks on the road, and I passed the test with it; but, as 1 learned later, there are more subtleties than this in stopping quickly. So I'm delighted to see that the Ministry of Transport's new instruction manual Driving takes up just about a page on this subject of stopping in an emergency. And its advice is on a par with the rest of this extremely sensible and readable book. For example, it is well away from the bang-both-feet theory when it advises: "Leave the clutch pedal alone until just before you stop; this will give some help to your braking, and usually to stability as well."
My word for Driving (which costs 12s 6d from HMSO or booksellers) is "thoughtful". It backs up most of its advice with good reasons, which is rare, and it gets right away from that holier-than-thou and we-knowbest style which has afflicted some official publications in the past.
At the approach to the Christmas period, when we usually expect an unhappy increase in road accidents and casualties, 1 make no apology for devoting a fair amount of space to road safety. Let's take a closer look at Driving, for a start.