Learning to drive is very much more than just a mechanical action. It is something of a rite of passage. It's time when an adolescent takes a small but significant step towards adulthood. As the ever-supporting parent, it is a time of enormous stress. First, you have to sit in the passenger seat and watch your offspring take their first tentative steps towards flying the nest. You also have put up with this while not complaining at the grinding of gears and the smell of burning clutch emanating from your prized mode of transport. And, of course, you have to provide useful tips and safety advice while ensuring that all concerned live to drive another day!
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.
The trick to avoiding each session riding shotgun turning into a fraught and stressful one is good preparation. Try to practice skills that are currently being taught in their paid for sessions with a qualified instructor. Take each of the necessary skills required one at a time, and have some realistic expectations in your mind for each session.
As suggested, experience is by far the best teacher so give the learner the chance to practice their skills and improve their abilities on a variety of roads in a range of prevailing conditions. Try to take in rush hour traffic and fast, multi-lane, carriageways. The importance of night driving and driving in adverse weather conditions cannot be overstated either.
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!
One very important area you can certainly help with is simple car maintenance checks. These are never covered by typical driving instructors, and as teens will spend at least some of their time driving your car, it would certainly pay to ensure they have the skills to deal with some simple issues. We're talking about such things as changing the wheel in he event of a flat tyre, where to find the jack, and how to check the various fluid levels rather than full engine rebuilds here!
To conclude, if you keep things organised and simple you really can't go too far wrong. Provide some warm up time at the start of each session and turn the inevitable mistakes into valuable lessons. If you approach things with the right attitude you are sure to enjoy this valuable time with your pride and joy. You decide if I'm talking about your car or your offspring!
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