HAVING the assistant chief driving examiner of Britain as a passenger would make any driver nervous. This may explain why I drove through a red light 12 seconds into my test drive yesterday.

But Bob Millard was surprisingly calm. “Eco-safe driving means looking well ahead, but don’t miss the lights in the foreground.”

He assessed my driving on a 20-minute run through West London, then gave me a lesson in how to be a greener driver.

I don’t claim to be world’s greatest driver, but was a little crestfallen by his verdict. “To put it politely, that was rather rough and ready,” he said. “You were hammering the pedals and using the gearstick as if you were wringing a chicken’s neck. Why did you keep racing up to the car in front and then braking? If you had anticipated how the traffic was moving you could have saved fuel by coming off the accelerator.”

Then I received my lesson in the art of smooth driving. The eco-meter on the dashboard showed how much more fuel-efficient it was to allow the engine do the braking while staying in the same gear. I had thought it necessary to move down through the gears while using the engine to brake.

After the lesson, I drove back to the starting point along the same route, getting tips all the way. The eco-meter showed what a dramatic difference eco-driving had made. My fuel consumption fell by a third, although my average speed slightly increased. And I stopped only half as many times because I anticipated hold-ups. The most surprising result was saving two minutes on the journey time, despite encountering more traffic.

My only problem was the tendency to be too competitive in trying to reduce fuel consumption. I was reluctant to stop, even when approaching a junction, for fear of the eco- meter flashing up the symbol of a petrol pump dripping fuel.

For most of the return trip it displayed a piggybank with money dropping into it.

“That was much better,” said Bob. “I even took my eyes off the road for a second.”

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