Driver Training - What's a parent to do? (Parents and teens invited.)

In My Humble Opinion
1

We have a good relationship with TeenSthrnAccent. It pleases me that he will talk about his day, the highlights, frustrations, embrassments and successes of teen life.

He’s learning to drive. :cool: I’ve been letting him drive to church (about four blocks all inside a residental subdivision) with me in the car for a couple of years now. However we are quickly approaching the time when serious road practice is going to be necessary. The driver training school will do some of it; however, we’re going to be practicing driving the family vehicle as well.

I don’t want to be the kind of parent of a teen driver that gets spoofed on TV, yet I do want to be able to point out things I notice about his driving (both good and bad).

Any suggestions from Dopers who’ve been through this? (Either as parent or the teen.)

Do I mention things as he’s driving? or do I store it all up and mention it when we are safe back at home?

I’ve already mentioned he takes the driveway too fast several times and he’s still going too fast in the drive. :eek: I truly don’t want to be a nag, but I swear if he doesn’t slow down he’s going to go all the way through the garage. Yes, I know I sound like a nag at the moment.

How do I make relevant pointers without being a total driver training nazi mom?

2

I’m 17, just got my license in June.

Wait until you are at home to tell him, unless it is a major mistake. It would make me much more nervous and mess up more when I would drive with my father, he pointed out every little thing. My grandmother told me when I got home what I did wrong, and I liked driving with her much better. It was also easier. I only drove with my father three or four times, he would be annoying.

3

Trained one, working on another.

Eyeore was nervous to start with. She wasn’t really interested in driving, and in fact didn’t even get her license until she was 18.5. With her, it was easier to drive short distances, then I would make her park in a lot or whatever, and go over what she needed to work on. I tried not to let my white knuckles show. :eek: We later enrolled her in a driving class, which was mostly theory, but it did boost her confidence 1000%.

With Piglet, who is much more comfortable behind the wheel, I will make calm remarks while she is driving, and she responds pretty well. Once, however, Dad was in the car with us. He is very loud anyway, and was critisizing her driving. She got so feed up, that, rather than resorting to tears as her older sister would have done, slammed on the brakes and got out of the car, telling him to drive. You could tell by the look on her face that she had wanted to put him through the windshield, not that I blame her. Afterwards, when everyone had calmed down, we discussed the dangers and the problem areas. She has been much better since.

4

Been through this three times (if you count when my dad taught me)
I favor the ongoing comentary. The probem with saving it up, is the new driver may not have seen a problem that you did, and if you try to review it latter, they may have no clue as to what you are talking about.
A few things I suggest,

[ul]
[li]Discuss what you are going to work on that day (business district, residental, freeway) and what is unique to each.[/li][li]Discuss what potential hazzards you expect on today’s drive[/li][li]What problems you had observed last time that you want them to pay attention to[/li][li]At first a lot of little trips (15-20 minutes) are better than one long one[/li][li]NO freaking radio ( a new driver has enough on their plate)[/li][li]Nobody else in the car at first[/li][li]Always praise in public, rip him a new asshole in private[/li][/ul]

Judging speed is something that many young drivers have a big problem with. This coupled with a teenager’s belief that they are bullet proof can lead to a major problems.
When my daughter first started driving, she could not judge speed worth a damn. 25, 35, 40, 50 they all looked alike to her.
I had to work on my daughter for months for her to be able to judge speed without constant reference to the speedo. Now when she drives she is right on the correct speed. if she had not been able to master that skill, I would not have let her get her license.
I also made both of my kids learn to check all the fluids, put gas in the car, and change a tire before I let them get a license.

5

I have only one thing to say. DON’T, under any circumstances, yell at a teenaged driver for making an honest mistake, no matter how badly it’s scared you. (Especially while the teenager is still driving the car; this is a sure way to make them screw up yet again.)

My first driving teacher did this, and it’s mostly her fault that I will never be comfortable or happy about driving.

6

My 15 year old just got his permit last Thursday. I have only let him drive locally which does consist of a few main roads (no highways) I find that it is easier to point out the mistakes as it happens. I have also learned not to yell in a panic because it freaks him out and makes matters worse. Sometimes his driving is smoother if I mention to him (before) he makes the mistake what his options are. Like say "if you slow down here you will have better control of the car as opposed to waiting for him to approach the car to fast and then have to correct him)

Hopefully he will learn to drive before your hair turns white. Good luck!

7

If he keeps going too fast in the driveway, there’s a couple ways you can change that behavior:

  1. make him back out, go around the block and do it again the RIGHT way.

  2. tell him if he doesn’t pay more attention to what he’s doing, you won’t let him drive for a while. That ought to get his attention. Try it with the radio off, too.

8

I was taught mostly by my mother, and while she will admit now that I’m a good driver, learning to drive with her was torture - but with Dad, I couldn’t keep the clutch pushed all the way down in his van and so never got to learn to drive it.

Be careful about inhaling sharply or pressing your own “brake pedal” while you’re the passenger. I always caught it out of the corner of my eye when mom did that and it made me more nervous than anything, because she would do it when no other cars were anywhere around.

Take him to an empty parking lot on a rainy day - my parents wouldn’t let me drive when it was raining until after I got my license, and I really didn’t know how to handle it, and that made me incredibly nervous about the rain - I still don’t like driving in the rain, but I did finally learn how to handle it without freaking out.

Teach him how to handle the interestate if you live near one. If it’s notoriously busy, go out later in the evening after rush hour or early on a Sunday morning, before it gets really busy. This is another thing that I did not get to do while learning to drive but had to learn mostly on my own - my mother hates the interstate and will avoid it at all costs, and hates it more when trying to teach teens to drive.

As to the telling him right away or waiting for later question, I think it depends on him. For me, I would have rather been told once we were home, unless it was a major thing. Telling me while I was driving made me more nervous and more likely to screw up. He may be completely different.

9

My father and I had lots of arguments when I was learning how to drive. Here are some things I remember:

-When he’s in driver’s ed, he may start driving “strictly by the book.” I got into a big argument with my dad about the following incident: in driver’s ed, we were told to stop behind the sidewalk at a stop sign. Then, if there were no pedestrians, to creep forward to see cross traffic (especially if there’s poor visibility of the cross street from behind the sidewalk) and then to proceed. We had to drive this way when we were driving with our instructors. So I did this with him, too. One time when I started to creep forward (the cross street was on an incline, so it was difficult to see oncoming cars) he started shouting at me to stop. I told him what I was doing (probably in a testy manner) and his response was “well, I don’t have a brake like your driving instructor does”.

-As a compliment to the above, make sure you’re aware of all of the technicalities of the “rules of the road”, especially once he starts driver’s ed.

-We had a long driveway, and one time after driving, he made be pull into it and back out of it something like 15 times. Except he originally said to do it only 5 times. Then he kept saying “just one more time.” It was annoying. So if you want him to practice something (especially something “boring” like going in and out of the driveway) x number of times, make sure it’s only x number of times.

10

i did take Driver’s Ed in high school to learn rules of the road and get some (fairly limited) actual driving time.

my mom chickened out of teaching me to drive after i had a small fender bender (she was in the passenger seat…and it wasn’t even on her side). she was much too easily upset after that, so she asked a local neighbor who just happened to be a policeman to do the supervised driving time. he was pretty calm and cool about the whole thing, as best i recall.

if you can keep calm, pointing out things that need correcting is probably best done at the time they need doing. but the “pressing the phantom brake” and clenching the seat/door/dashboard with both hands does NOT inspire confidence in the budding driver.

11

Mudshark After you arrived home and your grandmother mentioned things she felt you needed to work on, did you remember the instances she was talking about with you?

Lyllyan TSA hasn’t been real pushy to learn to drive either until the last few months. He’ll be 17 soon and we are just now getting around to driver training course. We are in Texas and now you can do a parent taught program. We ordered the program when he was around 15. It took nearly nine months to arrive. Then he had a particulary busy schedule for a few months and by the time his life slowed down enough to add an hour or two of driver training a day his father misplaced the documents. :rolleyes: So now he’s enrolled in a driver training course, as you said it’s primarily dicsussion with eventually having some 1/2 hour driving sessions. I’m planning on having quite a bit more actual driving time practice with him than that. (Actually I am looking forward to letting him to all the driving. :smiley: ) I like your idea of going short distances and then stopping for a chat and cleansing breath before continuing. Thank you. I remember being yelled at in driver training and am pretty sure I’ve got that under control. Sure as I say it won’t happen, it will though. So I’ll just say that I’m planning on not being a yeller.

Rick You’ve made a valid point about ongoing commentary. I guess I will try both and see what he is more cooperative and receptive too. I appreciate the bullet point list and will definately keep them in mind. He’s done the Automotive merit badge in boy scouts, so he can change oil, tires and make other minor repairs. He recently even worked with his dad to get the a/c running again in the mom mobile, so I know he’s capable of handling the routine maintenance and small repairs. We’ll also require him to learn to drive a standard before letting him get his license, but that’s going to be with his dad as the mom mobile is automatic. Thanks for your suggestions and comments.

Fretful Porpentine Noted. I had a similar horrid experience and intend to try very hard not to yell or yelp. Screaming is not an issue as I do not scream at him anyway.

Isabelle Good idea about looking ahead. It’s part of defensive driving anyway and I’m glad of the suggestion. Thanks.

Kalhoun 1) We live on a cul de sac, but I get your point.
2) I really need to not forbid the boy from driving right now. It’s not irresponsiblity, it’s lack of experience, or at least that’s how I am feeling right now. He’s not been too terribly anxious to learn to drive. I think he’d be fine with waiting even longer, but with both parents working and his busy schedule with school, sports, work, church and scouts, we really need him to be a little more independant than he can be on a bike.

Lsura I’m familiar with The Inhale and Phantom Brake. That’s just the response I am struggling with. I know it annoys him, and I’m trying but sometimes :eek: yipes I get startled.

easy e Good reminder on the just one more time thing. I have been known to do that (though not with the driving yet).

** lachesis ** Yep, I’ve definately got to work on The Inhale and Phantom Brake.
:o

Keep 'em coming folks. Thanks!

12

Here’s my experienced, based on being taught to drive by a man who raced motorcycles for 25 years before attempting to teach me to drive.

Under no circumstances should you yell or scream or panic in any way.

You may want to give a speech about: this vehicle weighs 2000 pounds or more. It can crush you. It can crush someone else. Explain what defensive driving means and use examples while he is driving. Both my parents impressed these points on me, and I still use their advice every single day. (Never trust someone’s turn signal, etc.)

Dad took me to a vacant high school parking lot, in February in Ohio. He had me slam on the brakes and learn what a skid feels like and how to steer out of one. (This also taught me how to do donuts…) Since you live in the South, you’ll be hard pressed to find snow in August… but taking him out in a hard rain is almost the same driving techniques – you slow every movement down.

Dad made me drive a figure 8, then (in 1" of snow) follow the exact same tire tracks backward. I had to do this over and over until I could drive the same path and make only one set of tire tracks.

He made me back up for about 200 feet (big parking lot), pull back out to my starting point and do it again – one straight line, one set of tire tracks.

Since the driveway curved, I had to go up and down that, backwards as well.

He taught me to use my mirrors instead of twisting around in the front seat to back up. (“That way you can see someone about to hit you in front of you, with your peripheral vision.”)

Basically, he made me drive backwards for about 4 hours until I was confident enough to go ace my test.

13

http://www.autocross.com/evolution :smiley:

Okay, maybe you don’t want your kid to take a performance driving school quite yet, but it really does improve driving skills all around, not just track driving skills. :slight_smile:

14

I agree, ** AbbySthrnAccent**, that the above is all good advice.

I was really nervous about driving – I’ve had nightmares about having to drive a runaway car from the back seat all my life, even before I learned to drive. I took driver’s ed at school at 15 1/2 but didn’t take the test until my mom insisted when I was 18. Then I promptly got a job that required a lot of driving, and kept that job through an icy winter in my very hilly home town. Getting a lot of early practice driving on ice and snow has saved my life several times, both in winter conditions and in plain old almost-accidents; my driving reflexes are fast and fully automatic.

I’d add:

• As long as he’s learning, and until he’s an old pro, never ever have both parents in the car while he’s driving. Unless one of you is superhumanly self-controlled, you’ll both be compelled to coach him, even if only by The Stifled Inhale and mere leg-twitches towards the Phantom Brake, and you’ll frustrate him with mixed messages.

• I’d physically remove any radio or player in the car he’s going to drive, for at least the first year. He’ll probably think he’s ready to cope with it before he really is (I know I was – the only time I’ve ever been responsible for any kind of accident, it was when I sideswiped a parked car’s mirror off when fiddling with the tape player at age 18).

• Ask him to tell you what he thinks he needs to work on, and do that, too.

• Make it clear that when you want him to slow the f*#! down, it’s because any good driver would; you’re not trying to make him drive like a Florida retiree just because he’s your baby boy. Have him watch the speedometer when you or his dad take the drive (but don’t slow down just 'cause he’s watching; he’ll know the difference).

• I so completely ditto Rick’s “Judging speed is something that many young drivers have a big problem with.” It’s fair to tell him so, and go into detail about it, that it’s an acquired skill that he is Now Going To Acquire.

• Make him learn to parallel park properly, even if you have to hire a consultant to teach him, even if he will rarely need to do it where you live. He might hate it, but less than he’ll hate having his buddies point and laugh when he tries it when he has to.

Finally, I vote for telling him what he’s doing wrong as he does it if it’s potentially dangerous, but telling him most of the other stuff after he’s stopped for a minute. And cultivate a calm manner for the dangerous stuff. When I was learning, I told my folks it would help if they were calmer, and my dad was able to do it. It helped a lot. My mom never could manage.

Good luck! Best wishes to TeenSthrnAccent!

15

A couple of other things
[ul]
[li]We park in an alley where you have to back out of the parking space and turn so you can drive out of the alley. I made both kids back up as far as they thought it was safe, then had them put the car into park and go eyeball the distance from the wall. When they thought they were only a foot away they were 6 or 7 feet away. This teaches them where the corners of the car are.[/li][li]I agree with teaching parallel parking.[/li][li]I also fully agree with emilyforce’s two parents comment[/li][li]He will make mistakes and some of them more than once. Keep your cool.[/li][/ul]

16

Two kids, both with licenses, no accidents so far.

We live in California, where a kid need six months of practice, day and night, to get a license. Wonderful law!
For daughter #2, the one who just got a license, I made sure to always be calm, and also to praise her for things she did right. All this was right when it happened. She did a lot more right than wrong, so the net result was positive. She was also very cautious.

It helped that the very first time she drove after getting her permit, in a parking lot, she had to deal with some clown driving the wrong way down the lane. She handled it very well, we both could get mad at the other driver, and it was a good start.

Stupidest rule: when I learned, I lived in Queens. In New York City you were not allowed to drive with a permit, even with a parent. ditto for Nassau county. We had to drive about 30 miles to practice, my father being excessively law abiding. Needless to say that a hour every Sunday is not a lot. It’s a miracle I ever learned.

17

One little suggestion-
Think about doing a few long distance road trips with TeenSthrnAccent. It sounds like you’ve been doing mostly residential street practice; when I was learning to drive, I found rezzy stuff to be the most stressful and overwhelming.

The idea is to give your student a large enough chunk of time driving that he can start to relax and get comfortable without being overwhelmed. 1 hour of straight city or suburb driving would have given me conniption fits at 16, but 1 hour of winding mountain highways was quite manageable and let me practice fundamentals at highway speed with plenty of margin for error. The last major practice I did before getting my license was being 1 of 3 drivers in shifts for a trip down the Alaska highway from Skagway to Seattle.

 4 days-> 4-5 hours a day in 1 hour shifts-> lots of practice and a big boost to confidence and familiarity.
18

If you have the chance, try being the passenger with an experienced driver and paying attention to little details. One problem that we had was that Mom was only ever the driver. She had little experience being the passenger and the road looks very different from the right half of the car. She’d freak out that I was too close to the white line while I was panicking that I was going to lose the drivers side mirror to the vehicle next to me. We eventually sorted out the problem … but there were many tense driving trips until then.

19

FInally a topic I know something about, so I will come out of lurker status and add my .02.

My step son is about to get his license and is about ready. I got the job of teaching him, because his Mom worried too much and his Dad is a pontificator. He has some circumstances that makes it diffcult (went to a residential high school and is on the West coast for College).

First thing I did was go to the local parking lot and we did big lazy curves. A lot of them. I also took two trash cans and put them in the parking lot and told him to go between them. Then I got them closer and closer and closer, till he hit them. They were just big enough to see. Then we turned between them etc.

The other big thing I did was tell him to get up a lot of speed and Jam on the brakes as hard as he could. That let him know that this baby will stop if you have to.

We then went out on residential streets more and more and finally onto busier streets. At some point, his mom took over to get him time.

I tried to keep a cool calm demeanor on the road. It is amazing how tightly you can grip the seat out of sight of the driver. The only time I ever raised my voice was because he didn’t see a car and I told him to STOP. No accidents no problems.

We still need to work with him on highway and such, but i don’t mind riding with him.

Also I agree with two drivers in the car. The backseat person should be very very quiet.

20

Abby, I’m glad to hear that you’re not a yeller. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the post. My mom is a big yeller. Always has been, always will be. Especially when she’s nervous. Needless to say, her driving lessons are not treasured memories that I reflect upon fondly.

I love emilyforce’s suggestion about not having both parents in the car at the same time. Sheer brilliance.

Teach the young’un some basic maintenance. This is how you check the oil; this is how to jump-start an engine; this is how to call AAA.

Have fun!