FW: Re: [QUAD-L] C5 Driving a van?

[William Willis]

For me, the hardest part of using handcontrols is having to stop and take 
off going uphill. I inevitably roll back a bit. Then if my hand slips off 
the control and there happens to be a car behind me, I have a moment of 
semi-panic. I've never had an accident like that, though. I just try to 
avoid hills that have stop lights or signs.

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], quad-list@eskimo.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [QUAD-L] C5 Driving a van?
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:42:15 EDT



Don't be too nervous about driving Mark because you will get extensive
training on how to use the new controls.  I was never afraid to drive 
anything but
when I entered the training van  with all the electronic controls I do have 
to
admit that I was intimidated at  first.  But my instructor assured me  that
by the time we are done I will be able to handle just about any situation,  
and
he was right.
When you start out driving the first thing they do besides setting up all
the controls for you is to take you to a secluded area (I live in the 
country
and drove up and down my road) and have you start and stop over and over 
and
over again until you have that mastered.  Once we did that it was off to a
parking lot, which I drove to, and did  left and right turns, backing into 
parking
spaces and backing around the parking  lot.  We then proceeded to go around
the block several times each direction and then we started to pick up  
speed.
At that time, 30 miles an  hour felt like I was doing 100.  Once I felt
comfortable enough, I wanted to go on some roads that were  hilly and rough 
to see
how I would handle all the dips and bumps.  Once I was comfortable enough 
we
hit the  freeway, which is very easy, and headed down the hill to Duluth to 
be
in more  traffic and two parallel park.  I  did my parallel park the very
first try and after I did my weight shift we came  back home and he told me 
I did
not need any more training.  He told me is that it takes  approximately 30
hours of training to be able to drive and I was done within 15  hours.  If 
you
have any chance at  all to be able to drive go ahead and at least try.
Jim