As rites of passage go, they don’t come very much bigger than learning to drive. It marks a definite pivotal moment in an adolescent’s life when they take their first tentative steps towards striking out by themselves. The ever-considerate parent is forced to go through this with them, and it’s generally with no small amount of stress. You sit next to them in the car and try to ignore the distressing sounds coming from your cars gearbox and the distinctive smell of burnt clutch. Frankly, it’s quite an effort. You are also expected to do this while remaining positive and supportive, and alert enough to avert potential hazards.
However, your position in the passenger seat is a vital one. Driving on modern roads is a heady mixture of good luck, honed technique, and a considerable amount of experience. It is our job to provide this experience at this stage. You should be well place to anticipate pitfalls before tragic consequences ensue.
You time with them in the car then, is to be expected to be pretty stressful! But the secret to minimising the amount of anxiety, for both driver and passenger, is careful preparation. Plan each session to cover a particular skill, and try to follow what they are learning in the proper driving lessons. This will give a valuable opportunity to reinforce what they have learnt.
As we have said, the best teacher is experience so try hard to give the novice driver the widest taste possible of riving on every type of road in all types of conditions. Rush hour, city centre driving is the obvious example, but also take in fast multi-lane carriageways. Night driving and driving in wet weather is also essential.
One tip for safe driving is to give the novice the chance to work with the sort of roads they will spend most of their early driving careers driving on. These are those roads to be found around your home. By example, I lived in a pretty rural location, but did my lesions after work each day in a neighbouring city. I did most of my driving on narrow, winding, lanes despite never having touched upon these during my lessons.
Probably the first place you should pay a visit to should be an empty car park. These wide open spaces are ideal to hone the simple car handling skills like turning and braking, as well as some more advanced concepts. If you can find some traffic cones somewhere, you could have a go at laying out an imaginary route, and perhaps some corners. With just a little imagination you can create an ideal safe environment to practice reversing around corners, gear changes, and the dreaded parallel park!
As an experienced car owner one very important area you can give some crucial advice on is that of very basic car maintenance and the safety checks. These are such thing as changing a flat tyre, topping up the washer bottles and similar. This isn’t something that is ever touched upon in lesson, and a little knowledge here goes a very long way.
In summary, keep things well structured and simple and this can be a great opportunity to bond. It all comes down to having the right attitude
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