| PARENT/TEEN INSTRUCTION DEFENSIVE DRIVING CLASSES It's a good idea to accompany your teenager as much as possible both before and after their road test. Repetition is the key to learning. Here are some tips to help you when you are the co-driver: - Try to evaluate your student so you will have some idea where to go. If the student is very nervous in busy traffic, direct him to a place that's quieter to help build his confidence. - Also in your evaluation, try to find out what needs to be worked on - are his turns rough and jerky? In that case head for a residential area to work on them. Trouble with lane changes? Find a good street to practice. This is discussed in my drivers ed online ebook which can be found by clicking here - Don't drive around in a random fashion - direct your student all the time. The reason for this is you don't want him getting into a very difficult situation that he can't handle, and becoming very nervous and perhaps freezing up. - The exception to this is when the student has had a lot of driving, handles the car well, and is accustomed to heavy traffic. In that case, what you can sometimes do is tell them to take you somewhere and let them plan the trip before you leave. - When giving directions make them as clear as possible. For ex- ample, don't say "turn right at the first street" one time and "turn right at the next street" another time. I prefer "turn right at the first street" because that is as clear as can be. Another example is saying gas pedal one time and accelerator another time. - Don't say "turn left at the stop sign,'' or "turn right at the traffic light." You don't want to be telling the student these things when they need to be spotting them themselves. - Sometimes, especially in heavy traffic, you will have to say "do you see the red light way up ahead?" When they say yes,then tell them which way you want them to turn. This is needed in order to give the driver enough time to change lanes. - Use the 'hamburger' approach. "Okay, that lane change was quite smooth / but don't cut in too soon / otherwise, it's looking good." You may have to explain what is "too soon." - Here's a pretty good rule of thumb for when to cut back in after you have passed someone: when you can see that whole car in your rear view mirror, you can go in front of them. - Try not to overload the student. For you, a right turn is done almost automatically, with hardly any conscious thought. But for a beginner, they have to consciously be thinking of: checking mirrors, signaling, checking blind areas, braking, positioning, checking for traffic before the turn, steering, and recovery. They also have to think about when to signal, when to brake, how much to brake, where to look and so on. - Just take the above, for example, in small bites, doing a lot of right turns until the student can do them quite well. - When the student is driving, try to refrain from discussing something at length. It's okay to make brief comments such as 'good turn' 'start braking now' 'remember your blind spot check' etc. If you need to say something involved, have the driver pull over and stop. - As a co-driver you may get nervous at times, but try not to show it, otherwise it will be more difficult for the student. -Try to set up a small mirror on the dash or somewhere so you can see the drivers eyes. They should be constantly moving. Look in the mirror to see that they're scanning all intersections and crosswalks. - A running commentary is a good thing to do once a student can handle the car fairly well and is out into busier traffic. Just ask the driver to tell you what he sees when he's driving, for the next 3 minutes for example. You could interject occasionally with 'that's right' 'yes' 'good' or if the driver doesn't mention something important you could point it out for him. When you get the student driver to mention all the things he sees, he will become more aware of everything that's happening around him. Every so often get the student to mention all the important things that he sees. Some people will say "well I can't drive and mention all these things at the same time, it's too distracting." Encourage them to realize that yes they can do this, it's good for them. - A running commentary would go something like this: The traffic light ahead just turned green/there's a blue car behind me/ yellow car starting to pass me/cyclist ahead, so I'm changing lanes/ traffic light changed to yellow/sign says road narrows/ pedestrian jaywalking ahead... You will learn more about learning to drive and driver safety in my ebook "Learn To Drive And Survive" Click on the link below. http://www.ultimate-driver-training.com/index.html
http://www.ultimate-driver-training.com/parent_teen_instruction.html
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