| Learning To Drive A Parents Perspective |
| Written by John Robertson | |||
| Monday, 02 November 2009 12:37 | |||
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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. Firstly, 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 whilst 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 whilst ensuring that all concerned live to drive another day!
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. Firstly, 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 whilst 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 whilst ensuring that all concerned live to drive another day! Thus said, your role beside the novice driver is a crucial one. Modern driving is about a fine mix of technique, good luck, and a huge amount of experience. It's often said, but practice does indeed make perfect. Your role as the experienced driver in the car is to pre-empt the risk long before the driver will be aware of them. 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 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. My advice is to allow the driver to get as much experience as possible on the sort of roads they will be doing most of their early driving on. These are, naturally, the roads to be found around your home. Learn from my mistakes! Though I lived in a relatively rural location, I took my driving lessons in the heart of a neighbouring city centre, after work each week. The greater part of my early driving experience was on narrow country lanes despite never having touched on these in the course of my driving lessons. I'm sure that the first place you will head for will be he nearest empty car park. Rightly so. These empty open spaces provide the ideal environment to learn some basic skills. You should be able to practice braking, gear changes, and turning here. With a little imagination you can lay out a course to give them some further experience of reversing around a corner and the dreaded parallel park! There are normally a few traffic cones to be found in car parks to help with this task. As a car owner one area you can impart some invaluable knowledge is that of basic maintenance and the basic safety checks that are just as muck a part of driving. These things are never touched upon by driving instructors. Things like changing a wheel, where the tools are, and how to top up the oil should be covered. 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 About the Author: john robertson owns topgear driving tuition and offers information aboutdriving instructors yoker
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