School/Parent/Teen

Driver Training Overview

You need to allow your newest family driver to get as much practice as possible. If practical, they should have the opportunity of driving wherever you travel. If opportunity allows, a trip to the Bay Area or any metropolitan area will provide them with the experience of a myriad of traffic controls and situations, much more than is available in the Ukiah valley. You the parent have a vast amount of knowledge and experience to share with them and they will only be able to take advantage of it when they are allowed to practice driving in your presence.

For various reasons, many parents do not allow their kids sufficient practice. The law requires a minimum of 50 hours of practice for minors, with the stipulation that 10 of those hours should be at night. Based on our personal experience, we have observed that the average student’s basic defensive driving skills in the traffic environment developat around 100 hours.

Many drivers remember the Sears Driving School programs that proliferated throughout the country in the sixties and seventies. Unlike many of the programs back then that stressed instruction, we have found that the real key to defensive driving is practice. Think of this as a music lesson. The professional driving school instruction gives the student the proper technique, critique and correction. The subsequent practice is what develops the skill. Along that vein, remember: ‘Practice does not make Perfect. Perfect Practice makes Perfect’.

If you will put a notebook in the glove compartment to keep track of their hours and strive for 100 hours or more, you will help to assist in those defensive driving skills. The typical teen student driver tends to develop mechanical skills right around 6-10 hours of practice. That is deceptive; it looks good: smoothness in gas, brake, steering, position in lane and distance to other vehicles. The problem is, they are still apprehensive, have a death grip on the wheel and their eyes are locked in on the license plate of the car in front of them. Most will start to relax around the 10-20 hour mark. That is where they will raise their field of vision and observe all the traffic and controls going on around them that they have been oblivious to. From there to the 100 hour mark is where they will repetitively see the many variations on the themes and begin to compensate for them by taking their foot off of the gas, covering the brake, slowing down, speeding up, pulling over, changing lanes, honking the horn, etc.

Also, remember the Rule-of-Thumb for an ‘Average Driver’ is someone who has been driving and average of 12,000 to 18,000 miles a year for 5 years in an urban driving environment. As you can see, 100 hours is but a drop in the bucket, but it is certainly better than anything less. 

Don’t think for a second that any driving school; the Sears Driving School of old, any of the modern day versions of them or the latest and greatest Accident Avoidance Schools that are springing up at racetracks can compensate for the practice that you can provide your teen. Your tutelage is everything!