I digress

I've found out lately that I can't perceive a hazard for toffee.
For reasons which now escape me, I recently decided it was high time I began driving lessons, at the stately age of...*ahem*. The driving is pants-wettingly scary (and that's just for my dear, sainted instructor - I return from each lesson a gibbering mass of sweaty palms and high-pitched, hysterical laughter). I'm sorry, but it's just not natural to do so many things at once, and don't talk to me about multi-tasking.
Still, in a spirit of rakish optimism, I have booked my theory test, and now have two weeks of desperate swotting ahead of me. Even if I can remember those infernal stopping distances, I fail to see exactly what use they are. I couldn't guess a distance of 96 metres at 70mph (yay! Remembered one!) if my life depended on it, which I suppose it may do one day. Added to this are the terrors of the hazard perception test (one click too many, and the practice CD-rom glibly and infuriatingly informs you that you will score 0 for this test because of your wanton trigger-happiness). I'm already queasily nervous about the whole thing, and I know I will soon be dreaming about it every night and waking up muttering 'give the cyclist plenty of room' in a hoarse and haunted whisper. I need some sort of mantra to calm me down.
Altogether now...
20 mph is 12 metres...
30 mph is 23 metres...