Driving school

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I am 17 years old, and i had just began driving school. First day was today, and honestly i hate it. I was really nervous, i had never practiced before because my parents said that the instructor will teach me everything. Well i did horrible in turns, and he made me feel like crap (sorry for language). I was going to put off driving till my twenty’s, but then realized i wont have time to take it in college or in med school. Im really stressed out about it and don’t know what to do. I can’t stress about this, when im already stressing out about taking 8 classes plus and online class for my senior year to meet the state requirements (moved to a different state end of junior year). Taking 1 class over the summer, and might be taking another to fill in part of the requirements. </p>

<p>Any advice on what to do?</p>

2

<ol>
<li><p>Breathe.</p></li>
<li><p>Breathe.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m pretty sure the person who was in the car with me during drivers ed (our instructors talked to us over the radio) was quite possibly the worst driver I’d ever seen. He got cones stuck under the car while practicing going in reverse, couldn’t drive in a straight line, etc. He turned out just fine. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Everyone whose parents didn’t teach them at least a little bit looked awful, so calm down.</p>

3

<p>I think everyone will understand where you are coming from. It is normal to be nervous. I am in the process of teaching my 18 year old how to drive. We live in Ohio and since he is 18 he isn’t required to take driver’s ed (I think that was his gameplan). Please take the following things into consideration that I have been trying to pass on to him in the 3 weeks we have been doing this: (please talk to your parents and see if they will help you even just 20 minutes at a time)</p>

<ol>
<li>Definitely-Breathe (as stated above)</li>
<li>Starts and stops-that is where we started in a HS parking lot</li>
<li>corners-he still struggles with this-take them slow</li>
<li>if you are starting to feel uncomfortable-slow down. Don’t stop in the middle of the road or intersection, but slow down a bit to get your bearings.</li>
<li>Don’t panic-read step 4.</li>
<li>If you need to correct yourself-don’t over correct. That is when accidents happen.</li>
</ol>

<p>I understand it is hard to watch everything. Sometimes those of us who have been driving for so long need to remember how hard it is. Pay attention to what is going on around you: stop lights/signs, crosswalks, other traffic. </p>

<p>You really need more than the driving instructor can give you to make you comfortable. I really hope your parents are willing to help you get the experience. It will not happen overnight so please don’t be so hard on yourself.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>Driving is stressful.
Not sure if you meant to post this to parents, but I just “forced” my 18yo son (almost 19) to get his license. He had no interest in driving, was super nervous. The first few times around the block I was grabbing the dashboard, pressing my “imaginary brake”–just like my mom did when I was learning to drive 30+ years ago. This kid has had his permit(failed the written test the first time… .) for a year (expires tomorrow) and just started practicing the last couple months. H had to take him on the highways a few times–I’d freak out.
Took him for his road test this Wed.–after waiting 3 1/2 hours, he failed the test. Took him back early the next morning–only waited 2 hours then–and he passed. Big relief. I just wanted him to get his license before he leaves for college. </p>

<p>Just stick with it. Every time it gets a little easier and your skills will improve quickly. You have time to do it this summer–you’ll just be busier later. Ask your parents to take you out to practice. Short, daily practices are better than going for one long drive once a week. (I can see why your parents were depending on the instructor for that–it’s really nerve-racking for parents, too.) Once you pass the driving test, if you keep your license current, you’ll never have to take it again.</p>

<p>NN–My kid didn’t take drivers’ ed, either. I did make him go through an interactive DVD course put out by AAA. Good luck!</p>

5

<p>Thank you everyone for the advice, my dad is having me take a week of the driving school to practice more. I will put more effort into getting my license and will not forget to breathe :D</p>

6

<p>Which should come first, the online class or actual driving? Back when I learned, we took the classroom training first, before getting behind the wheel. Now it’s the other way around, at least here in Ohio. Kids get behind the wheel, and then they learn the rules. Am I the only one who thinks this is backwards? I made my kids take the class first, then began driving in a parking lot, drove with me in the neighborhood, and lastly, went out with the instructor. By that point, they were comfortable.</p>

7

<p>I remember my first time driving on a real road. My dad had me turn in at the worst possible entrance to a mall. I almost ran into another car. I remember telling my mother that I didn’t know how to park. I had a practical meltdown at Walgreens. I remember practicing parallel parking the night before my driver’s license test. Me and my mother got into a huge shouting match and I definitely was extremely stressed about it.</p>

<p>I then passed my driver’s test the first time I took it.</p>

<p>Learning to drive is extremely frustrating. It isn’t a skill taught until a very late age and is a really foreign concept to many.</p>

<p>Forget about how stressed out you are right now over driving. Ask your parents to let you practice driving 10-15 minutes every day. Eventually, you’ll get it and it won’t be so nerve-wracking.</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>I seldom take to the Internet to criticize other parents based only on what their kids say, but your parents are either really misinformed or really negligent.</p>

<p>The driver’s ed class in my state is 30 hours of classroom instruction and 6 hours of behind-the-wheel instruction. Nobody can learn to operate a car safely in only 6 hours. The state requires that student drivers log 60 hours of driving time with a supervising adult before they may take the road test for a license. And really, nobody can learn to operate a car safely in only 60 hours, either.</p>

<p>I don’t wonder that you felt like crap after your first time in the car. For one thing, as you have just discovered, driving is actually much harder than it looks. Driving a car is not natural; it is a huge array of learned and practiced behaviors. For another thing, if your parents really said that you’ll learn everything you need to know in this driver’s education class, they set the bar impossibly high.</p>

<p>But you’re absolutely right that you should not put off learning to drive until your twenties. That will not make things any easier, nor will it give you the same prolonged ability to practice with adult supervision that you can get when you’re in high school. The Talmud says that one of the obligations a father has to his son is to teach him to swim, lest the child fall into a river and drown. I really think the 21st-century parallel to that is that parents have an obligation to teach their teenagers how to operate a car safely while they still have time to learn. My older daughter hated driving–still hates it. I told her, “That’s fine, you don’t have to like it. But you have to learn to do it well enough that you’re not afraid to do it. Because if you can’t drive a car, you’re going to have to live in Manhattan for the rest of your life.”</p>

<p>Good luck. And ask your parents to re-think their position that you will learn it all in driver’s ed.</p>

9

<p>Toledo, I think you did it the right way. Operating the car without taking the classroom component seems completely backwards to me.</p>

10

<p>It sounds to me like he only just started taking the class, how much opportunity could his parents have had to practice with him without breaking the law?</p>

<p>Perhaps it’s different elsewhere but here your parents are not authorized to practice with you until you complete the course. He said it’s day one.</p>

11

<p>I learning to drive too and I’m just like you! I’m practicing with my mom in an empty parking lot a little before my first lesson on Sunday. We both really need to relax.</p>

12

<p>@atomom, i didnt know where to post this, I thought here would be the best. I, too am super nervous, when going to the driving school i was starting to feel sick since i was really anxious. But in the future, i will gain more confidence. Though i am terrified of the high way, so when that time comes ill be ,hopefully, not nervous. Thank you very much! :D</p>

13

<p>@wannabegenious Yeah, we do need to relax. Eventually we will get used to it and become great drivers.</p>

14

<p>@Atomom-We seem to be in the same boat so I thought I would throw this out there-My son moves into college in the middle of August. Personally-I am not sure that he or I will be ready for him to get his license at that time. But-if we don’t he may lose some of the freshness that he has now from going out with me everyday. His next chance to actually get his license wouldn’t be til probably Christmas break. Plus-keep in mind since we just started he has yet to drive in snow or ice, or even rain for that matter since we have been so dry.</p>

<p>Do we get it before he goes in August and I make him sign an agreement with me that he won’t drive until we both feel comfortable or do we hold off until possibly winter or spring break. He won’t have a car anyway on campus and will be using my car at home.</p>

<p>Thoughts?? and thanks!</p>

15

<p>DD1 is about to take her DL test (at age nearly 20 :)). Started with empty parking lot for a couple hours, then countless hours driving in neighborhoods esp. early Sunday mornings with nobody around. Then a few tentative drives on real streets. </p>

<p>THEN, 30 hours worth of classroom, and THEN, six hours with the instructor one on one, and THEN, a few more one on one hours with the instructor, and she’ll take the test next week. She’s logged a pretty large amount of hours of supervised driving so far and is comfortable enough.</p>

<p>Few important notes. 1, she’s using a small, very easy to drive car (2012 Honda Fit) - things would have been different if she drove my beloved European sportswagon - 2. we live in a well planned area with decent roads (not a metropolis) 3. she got an apartment right across campus 4. Lots of practice - she’ll have nearly 100-125 hours of driving before we’re off for year 2 in August. </p>

<p>The biggest issue they seem to have is not driving per se; it’s route planning, being in the proper lane and so on. Some places can be tricky with one way streets and the like, so we’ll spend a couple days in her college town practicing as well… As far as snow etc goes, she is not to drive the car in inclement weather for a year at least. If she wrecks it, then it’s grocery shopping the Elbonian way (city bus)…</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>Ema, where I live, at least, driver’s ed and having a learner’s permit are sort of parallel events. You can get your permit before you take driver’s ed (as long as you can pass the written test on rules of the road), or you can take the classroom part of driver’s ed (but not the behind-the-wheel part) before you get your permit.</p>

<p>One of my kids did take the classroom part before she had her permit, and had only been behind the wheel once before she had her first behind-the-wheel lesson. My problem isn’t so much that this was the OP’s first experience driving the car as it is that he seems to think his parents want his only experience driving a car to be in this class.</p>

17

<p>

</p>

<p>That can be so hard. It’s really nerve wracking when you’re a new driver, and you know what the car needs to do, but you’re really not at all sure how to make it do that. And it’s also really nerve wracking when you’re the parent who knows exactly how to make the car do that, but you’re not sitting in the driver’s seat.</p>

<p>For this reason, I made a rule with both of my kids: during driving lessons, any shouting, any raising of voices, whether on the part of the parent or on the part of the teen, had to be forgiven and forgotten immediately. There was absolutely no grudge-holding allowed. When we started out with a mutual understanding that there would be tense and scary moments, and that anything that either one of us said or did under such stress didn’t really count, we actually got along pretty well.</p>

18

<p>Don’t worry about the highways at all for now. I think it’s better to learn how to handle the car in empty parking lots, then neighborhoods with low, then moderate, then heavy traffic. Go where it’s mostly at 35 mph and no more than 45 mph. Then learn to back up, parallel park and do a 3[point turn (which gets you out of a dead-end street situation). When you get confident driving in neighborhoods with traffic (stop lights, stop signs, left and rigth turns) you can think about a road test for your driver’s license. </p>

<p>In a lot of states, they don’t include highway driving on the licensing road test.</p>

<p>After you have a license, over the next 6 months or so, you’ll get more confident doing errands and going places using nieghiborhood routes.</p>

<p>THEN, find a private driving school and get 2 or 3 individual lessons (in my area, these cost about $45 for one 45-minute lesson, on whatever you need). Ask them only to teach you highways – the on-off ramps and you’ll have a private teacher and double brake car, and be an experienced neighborhood driver yourself, when you first go up to the 55 mph highway speed. Really, you’ll do better on highways once you have had your license for a half-year or so!</p>

<p>To me, this makes the most sense. Unless you live in a location where you MUST use highways frequently for everyday errands, you really can wait to learn that piece.</p>

<p>Where I live, parents must drive 50 hours with a child younger than 18 and sign a paper to take to the road test. Another poster above mentioned a 60-hour expectation. Here, it’s also suggested that, of those 50 hours of home practice, l0 be after dark, and in some bad weather, too. What I’m thinking is that in your state, there might be a similar expectation that your driver teacher knows about. </p>

<p>Perhaps the driving teacher can show where thats written in print (or online), so you can show your folks that “the teacher says…” I need to have more practice (like everybody else does). </p>

<p>If they are too nervous themselves, perhaps there’s another friend of theirs, or another relative who would practice with you. (Here the rule is they must be older than 21, and licensed.) </p>

<p>As for lurching and having a bad first lesson, some good words on that came off a private driving school website I just read this week, on “how to help someone learn to drive.” The comment was that parents should not get upset when the brand new driver makes the car be jerky or stop too fast, start too soon, etc. Because…nobody was hurt! So, the car jumped around; that’s what it takes sometimes as someone is first learning to control it. Parents shouldn’t overreact over this (just take pepto-bismol). I hope that puts OP’s rocky first lesson in perspective a bit.</p>

<p>Maybe you can have a parent or relative understand they’re not “teaching you to drive” but that you just need them to “practice what I’m learning in driving class.” And really they shouldn’t try to do more than whatever you’ve learned in class. It’s just PRACTICE.</p>

19

<p>OP, it’s going to be OK. This is a new thing, and you’re learning skills you’ve never used before. It’s completely normal to be nervous about any new thing in the beginning. Don’t give up. It will get easier, little by little.</p>

20

<p>I am sure you are going to be fine. If it helps, my toughest student I had to eventually give up on. After 43 hours in the car, they still could not make right or left turns. I had to send them to one of my colleagues who took only another 50 to get them to the test. No one else ever took more than 15 hours in car, with the expectation that they would practice at home at at least a rate of 1:1 compared to my lessons. PM if you need advice.</p>