For every adolescent, learning to drive is much more than just a mechanical process. It is a time when the take a relatively small but hugely significant foray in to adulthood. As the long-suffering parent, it a time fraught with pressure. You have to sit next to them in the car and look on as your baby take their first steps away from you. You have to put up with the expensive sounds coming from your gearbox and the acrid odours coming from the clutch, and you have to endure it whilst being supportive and positive, and vigilant enough so everyone makes it home safely.
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 mentioned, experience is by far the best teacher so try to arrange your sessions to take in a range of conditions. This applies equally to road conditions, such as driving during rush hour start-stop traffic, as to weather conditions. Don’t forget the crucial lessons in night driving and multi-lane carriageways. Try to take in a range of different roads covering a range of different speeds.
My tip is to give particular attention to the sort of roads you have around your home, where the novice driver will spend most of their time after passing their test. For example, I grew up in a quite rural area but did my lessons after finishing work for day in a nearby city. Most of my driving was actually done on narrow country. The very particular skill set required for this wasn’t even touched upon by my instructor.
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
john robertson owns topgear driving tuition and offers information aboutdriving schools yoker
