<p>Hello, parents. I am FINALLY learning to drive at the ripe old age of 20. I never actually wanted to learn to drive until I was 19 so I drove a little bit last summer for the first time ever but then didn’t drive again until last week. I had this fear that I was going to be the WORST driver ever, lol. I still get nervous whenever I first get behind the wheel and of course I need way more practice but I was wondering if you guys had any advice for me?</p>
<p>I’m scared my nerves will get the best of me and sometimes, I feel as if I’ll NEVER learn to drive and park properly. I just want to be able to drive!</p>
<p>Look at your route before you leave that way you can concentrate on driving without having to worry about how to get there.
Practice as much as you can in areas with low traffic
Practice turns and stops in empty parking lots</p>
<p>Another one is to always keep enough space around you so that you can stop safely for or go around a suddenly appearing obstacle, such as the car in front of you changing lanes to unmask a stopped car, or a stopped car just around a blind turn or over a hill top. Of course, pay full attention to driving, not a cell phone conversation (which should be limited to “I’m driving and will be there in __ minutes. Bye.”).</p>
<p>Avoiding surprising others includes signaling in advance of turns and lane changes, not making unpredictable moves, obeying general rules of the road, turning on your headlamps under any low visibility conditions, etc…</p>
<p>I keep telling D - “if in doubt take the most conservative option”. She has an alarming tendency to turn or pull out in front of oncoming traffic with not nearly enough of a window. Probably has left several other drivers quaking in her wake…</p>
<p>Too many drivers don’t turn headlights on during inclement weather. I know what they are thinking is that the lights won’t help them see. That’s what I thought. The key isn’t how it helps them see; it’s how it helps others to see them.</p>
<p>Similarly, don’t just turn on parking lights, without headlights. That would indicate you want to help other drivers see you- but only help them a little bit. Is that really the best course of action?</p>
<p>Have you gone through an on-the-road drivers safety class? I think that would be the best course of action if you have one. Those instructors can instill in you good habits right from the get go and will take you through challenging areas with help. I still hear my drivers instructors voice in my head when I come to a four way stop.</p>
<p>Get some practice before you take formal lessons. You don’t need a professional instructor to teach you how to drive around a parking lot or on quiet neighborhood streets. Anyone can do that. </p>
<p>If you’ve already driven a little before your formal behind-the-wheel lessons, you can learn a lot more during those lessons. </p>
<p>And don’t be afraid to pay a little extra for more than the minimum number of lessons if you need them. Some skills, such as parallel parking, are quite challenging to learn. It helps to have an expert teaching you.</p>
<p>Don’t try to squeeze into a parking space just so you don’t have to walk a bit. Do everyone a favor and park a little further from your destination, where there won’t be a car on either side of you (this is particularly true with all the compact spaces - a designation that is disregarded). I once had a teenager crease the side of my car as I watched helplessly - she couldn’t quite figure out the geometry of turning into the space. There were plenty of spaces in the lot, she just wanted to be close to the building. When she saw what she’d done, she started crying and was useless. I had to call her dad. Big headache.</p>
<p>I learned to drive a few years late, and I still vividly remember thinking I must be the worst driver in the world because all my friends who had learned at 15 kept telling me how it was SO EASY and I didn’t think it was easy at all-- I thought it was terrifying. The truth was, driving DOES become second nature eventually… but that only comes with experience and practice. People tend to forget how hard it was when they first started by the time they’ve been driving a few years. Don’t let anybody intimidate you! It starts off a little scary for everybody, and when your confidence is shaken that can be just as dangerous as being overconfident. Just relax, take it slow, and you’ll be fine. With a lot of practice.</p>
<p>In a year or two you probably won’t even remember how nervous it used to make you.</p>
<p>Here are a few more tips:
I don’t know if they even teach this anymore but I learned that you should allow a car length for every 10 mph of speed between you and the car in front of you. This allows you the time to react if there is a problem ahead. Remember that it is always your fault if you rear end someone.
When you stop at a light, stop sign or just in traffic, stay far enough back that you can see the rear tires of the car in front of you.
Come to complete stops - really. A rolling stop is not a complete stop.
When the light turns green, pause before driving into an intersection. Many, many people run red lights. And when they do, they speed up. You do not want to be T-boned.
Expect the unexpected. You sound very conscientious and will likely obey the law. Many other people do not. Your best defense is to always maintain space around your car. Don’t follow too closely. Don’t stop suddenly. Don’t try to make a yellow light or a left turn with an approaching car. You get the idea.
Don’t drive really late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. If you do (and this is what I tell my kids) assume that a third of the people on the road have been drinking. Drive defensively.
On the freeway, stay in one lane as much as possible. Don’t jockey for position or pass unnecessarily, it won’t save you much time over the long run and it greatly increases your chance of having an accident. Move over toward the right well before you will need to exit.
Never, ever look at your phone or send a text message while driving.
If you are still really struggling, a good time to practice is early in the morning on a weekend. The roads are empty.
Good luck!</p>
<p>If you are following a large truck make sure you are not following so close that when you approach traffic lights you can’t see the light change. Meaning the last time you saw the light is before the truck got to it and blocked your view. If you don’t have enough distance where you will see the light again before you cross and have time to stop if needed you are too close.</p>
<p>Go on a long trip with someone where you get to do a lot of the driving. My D didn’t start driving until after high school and that’s what gave her confidence. She drives great now after she went on a cross country trip with a group where she had to do some long haul driving. (You don’t have to go cross country though).</p>
<p>Be aware that most accidents happen in a parking lot. Back out slowly and carefully, being aware of cars and pedestrians. Park out in the boonies where there aren’t any cars and walk in. And for heavens sakes, be VERY careful in Walmart parking lots!! For some reason, those parking lots are magnets for accidents.</p>
<p>With 15 foot long cars, this is 90 feet at 60 mph (= 88 feet per second, so that comes to about 1 second following distance), which is less than the 60-0 braking distance of typical cars (130 to 160 feet – more for heavier vehicles or poorly maintained vehicles, or during wet, snow, or ice conditions).</p>
<p>Optimal reaction time is probably about 0.5 second, but realistic reaction time is probably 1 second or more, so a car at 60 mph will travel 88 feet before the driver hits the brakes in an emergency situation. So a safe following distance in dry conditions with a properly maintained car would be (88 + 160) / 88 = 2.8 seconds if one wanted to ensure enough space in front to be able to stop for any stationary object that may be unmasked by the vehicle ahead changing lanes (or crashing into a stationary object).</p>
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<p>Better would be to watch the traffic while you are waiting at the red light, so that you can see whether there are any red light runners as the signal phasing approaches the time when you get the green (when the phase before yours gets yellow). If there are no red light runners, just go so that you do not delay yourself and others behind you. If there are, don’t go, obviously.</p>
<p>One of my kids got her license at 20 and now lives in LA, putting huge miles on her car each week. There really is no secret other than do it.</p>
<p>A few extra tips:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Don’t be pressured by other drivers. You come up to a light and the guy behind you wants you to turn NOW and you start paying more attention to him, though he’s behind you, than to the traffic you need to watch. Don’t get absorbed in the wrong context. It’s mostly what’s in front of you that counts.</p></li>
<li><p>Huge error most drivers make is they follow their natural instinct and keep trouble in front of them. Say someone is driving erratically, maybe swerves over a bit. Most drivers ease off the gas to keep that in sight. DON’T. In a car, danger is in front of you and safety is when it’s in your rear view mirror. Go past the problem, quickly but safely, and you won’t be involved in an accident.</p></li>
<li><p>Another huge error: understand how trucks and other giant things brake and accelerate. I am absolutely floored when I see a small car pull in front of a truck at the top of a hill. That truck needs to roll and its weight will roll it fast. Get out of the way. Get behind the truck on a downhill or get out of the way. This is doubly true in bad weather: if a truck has to brake in the rain and you are right in front of it, the truck may go right over the top of your car. I knew 2 kids who died that way. Big things accelerate slowly, so you should expect to pass them on uphills and coming away from lights. That gives you a chance to get away before the downhill. Think about that when driving at highway speeds.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t drive behind billboards. You hear this in driver’s class all the time. If you can’t see, you are completely trusting the reactions of the car in front of you. If there is a sudden stop and that guy doesn’t see it, you can’t react. A billboard can be a truck or a van/SUV, depending on the circumstances. Given the numbers of these on the road, you need to think about how you can see around or through the guy in front of you. Don’t be stuck in the context of the small space between you and the thing directly in front of you. You want your life to be in your hands.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know anyone who actually drives a car length behind for each 10mph. It isn’t feasible unless traffic is light. You will find cars cutting in front of you all the time and that isn’t safe either because then you are trusting that guy not to hit you, not to hit the guy in front of you, etc. You need to accept that you’ll drive in traffic.</p></li>
<li><p>My personal enemy is the guy who constantly hits the brakes. Imagine you’re driving to Portland, ME from Boston - like I do - and bozo the driver keeps tapping his brakes rather than think about his speed. I have to watch his brake lights all the time. I can’t relax and drive because I can’t be sure he’s just slowing gently or if he’s miscalculated and needs to stop. I can drop back but then another guy cuts in line and now he keeps hitting his brakes because bozo the driver inflicts that nonsense on others. Don’t use your brakes as a substitute for thinking.</p></li>
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<p>ucbalumnus - That was very interesting and much more precise than my generic 1 car length per 10 mph rule. Thanks for the explanation. In regard to the red lights, the thing I am always boggled by is the number of people in my neighborhood who would appear to be too far back to make the end of a green light/yellow light but instead of stopping, gun it and fly through a fully red light. A new driver might not anticipate that burst of speed but of course you are right that if no one is coming, it’s safe to proceed.</p>
<p>I think you misread the points, ucb. I drive a small car. I try not to drive closely behind big things but most cars aren’t big. You have to accept that as reality. I don’t drive 70mph right behind a car I can’t see through or around. </p>
<p>Driving in traffic means there’s traffic. Anyone who drives at 60mph or faster on a highway full of cars while leaving 6 or more car lengths in front will have cars cut in front all the time. If you keep dropping back to maintain your 6 or more car lengths, other cars will just cut in front. </p>
<p>Besides traffic volume, a real factor is that car patterns follow basic wave math. They clump together. That clump has a context of its own. A typical wave has a bulge around a certain speed and must deal with slower cars coming back at it and faster cars passing through it. There is no way around this.</p>
<p>“Driving in traffic means there’s traffic. Anyone who drives at 60mph or faster on a highway full of cars while leaving 6 or more car lengths in front will have cars cut in front all the time. If you keep dropping back to maintain your 6 or more car lengths, other cars will just cut in front.”</p>
<p>Can’t win them all. All I know is that extra car length has saved me from more than one accident.</p>
I never actually wanted to learn to drive until I was 19 so I drove a little bit last summer for the first time ever but then didn’t drive again until last week. I had this fear that I was going to be the WORST driver ever, lol. I still get nervous whenever I first get behind the wheel and of course I need way more practice but I was wondering if you guys had any advice for me?</p>