Three lessons this month. The last lessons I’d ever do. Because ya boi is a biker now! 🥺
Essentially, the last thing we had to ‘fix’ was merging onto the highway.
My instructor noticed that I was shoulder-checking a whole lot. I told him that I had trouble understanding when a gap in traffic would occur. He then decided to give me a visual instruction on how the mirrors are used to observe traffic and determine whether cars are getting closer or not.
When trying to merge onto the lane left of you, you should determine how long the merge lane is and then throw long gazes at the mirrors to observe traffic on the main lanes. The shoulder check is only a last check to verify that nobody is in your blind spot — it shouldn’t be used to find a gap, since you can’t turn your head 180 degrees… that’s why mirrors exist! When not merging, generally speaking in right-hand driving countries the right mirror shows objects that are further away from you. Objects in the left mirror are closer in that case.
Some of this stuff makes so much sense, but sometimes a visual demonstration (by walking far away from me and telling me to look in the mirrors) helps to make things click. And boy, did they click!
Today, on Feb 18th, I had a beautiful sunny ride through Rotterdam and Berkel. A government exam administrator and my instructor followed together in one car. And: we did it!
