There is a fixed speed camera on Broomhouse Road at Sighthill Public Park – speed cameras are often placed in locations that have a history of collisions, or that have a variety of road users and pedestrians – so this is something you should be aware of.
Specific Tips from Our Instructors
There are ample opportunities in this part of Edinburgh to practise manoeuvres between lessons. For example there are several roundabouts along Calder Road and Longstone Road, which will also provide you with the chance to work on your anticipation and planning. There are several retail parks which might be suitable for practising bay parking exercises outwith peak hours, such as Westside Plaza Shopping Centre on Wester Hailes Rd, or Hermiston Gait Retail Park. Sighthill and Wester Hailes are both well supplied with quiet residential streets that are ideal for mastering the basic car control skills when you are just starting out.
As well as the local roads, Sighthill and Wester Hailes are both very close to the City of Edinburgh Bypass (A720) which encircles the city and connects to the M8 (to Glasgow), the M1 (to England) as well as several other parts of the UK.
The Bypass is a dual carriageway and not a motorway, meaning that different vehicles have different speed limits – cars and motorcycles can travel at up to 70mph, whereas buses and goods vehicles can only travel at 60mph.
The Bypass is a busy and fast-moving road at the best of times, which sees a tremendous amount of traffic – not to mention the complex system of junctions here as well. Calder Junction (Junction 9) joins the Bypass and Calder Road (A71), which leads Westbound to Heriott Watt University and Eastbound is a major radial route in to the City Centre. Hermiston Gait (Junction 10) joins the Bypass and the M8, as well as providing access to Hermiston Gait Retail Park.
Driving Lessons Edinburgh doesn’t recommend you attempt these roads until you are quite experienced – although classed as a dual carriageway, the Bypass is effectively a motorway in all but name, and contains slip roads, hard shoulders, spiral roundabouts, etc – which can obviously be quite daunting until you have mastered a number of essential driving skills under the supervision of a properly qualified driving instructor.
It might be useful to look through some other local area driving guides on the site, particularly those for nearby areas such as the area guide for driving in South Gyle, the page covering Murrayfield and surrounding areas, or somewhere even closer to town like Gorgie.
Book Driving Lessons in Sighthill and Wester Hailes Now!
At Driving Lessons Edinburgh, many of our pupils come from the Sighthill and Wester Hailes areas – particularly students from the Wester Hailes Education Centre, Forrester High School and Saint Augustine’s High School, as well as the Sighthill Campus of Napier University.
Driving Lessons Edinburgh only employs fully-qualified instructors, and everyone in our driving school knows South West Edinburgh intimately. With a strong pass rate and cheap lesson prices, why not give us a call now on 07496 296 130 to book your first lesson.
As well as providing individual lessons, we also offer block bookings of 10 or more hours of lessons, as well as a range of competitively priced intensive and semi-intensive courses. If you have completed some driver training in the past but didn’t get around to completing your practical test then you may just be interested in taking a few refresher lessons – we cater for all levels of learner driver.
