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Curious about hiring professional driving instructors? Explore the advantages, from expert guidance to tailored learning, to boost your confidence and prepare for safe driving in diverse conditions.
Why does the Australian government encourage students to take lessons from professional driving instructors?
It’s often stated that driving instructors are effective, and the Australian government encourages learner drivers to take lessons from professional driving instructor. Many secondary schools are also making efforts to include driver training as part of their curriculum for teenagers, bringing driving instructor in to talk to students, hosting educational seminars from emergency services, and even arranging driving lessons with senior students out on the road.
Why should we take driving training?
It’s not to say that parents or friends are bad at teaching - the person learning to drive might not be learning as effectively for a variety of reasons. There may be some unease because of something that happened earlier, the learner driver might be overly worried about traffic or conditions, or there may be a mismatch between teaching style and learning style.
How does a driving trainer help develop driving skills and behaviors?
Let’s take a look at reasons that driving instructors are a vital part of effectively helping new learner drivers, and how they can help young learner drivers develop skills road safety, traffic rules and behaviors to become safer drivers for the future. Driving instructor are demonstrated to be better at assisting learner drivers with developing hazard perception skills by providing what is known as “higher order instructions” during your driving lessons. A part from the commonly cited “watch the road”, parents or friends will often give vehicle handling instructions that help while an event is currently unfolding.
Road safety, traffic rules, driving skills improvement instructions
These technical skills help you develop and maintain good control over your vehicle, but they are reactionary and you may not always have the appropriate time to react to a hazard.
Driving instructor on the other hand will provide instructions that help to driving skills, road safety, traffic rules a learner driver to prepare for an event before it begins by looking for particular signs of emerging or potential hazards. The instructions given by a driving instructor typically draw the learner driver’s attention to specific visual cues or behaviors in traffic (e.g. watching for indicators, or watching other drivers to gauge their intent or awareness), and give the learner driver more time to plan their response to a potentially dangerous situation before it occurs.
Did you forget to put out the rubbish today, or did you miss an important social event recently?
Luckily your driving instructor won’t hold that against you - they’re here to teach you how to drive safely, Road safety, traffic rules, driving skills, driving education and they’re not influenced by other aspects of your life in the same way a parent or friend is. Often learner drivers that experience conflict during their formative driving lessons will pick up bad habits as a result, and although they may learn how to perform the specific actions while taking the driving exams they won’t actually be quite as prepared for any unexpected real world driving scenarios afterward.
How to learning drive properly
Taking at least some of your driving lessons with an instructor lets you focus on learning how to drive properly, so that when you’re practicing with a parent or friend you can focus on using the skills you already know. This allows you to benefit by learning from a dedicated teacher and then practicing with your preferred supervising driver through a wider variety of conditions and times.
Parents will obviously do everything they can in their power to protect their child, but when you’re driving a vehicle and they’re sitting beside you as a passenger, they are much more limited in the support they can provide.
Instructor's vehicle for safety reason
While many driving instructors will accommodate you if you want to take your driving lessons in your car, most will usually teach you in their own vehicle for safety. These days it’s very common for instructor’s to have their car fitted with dual control pedals that provide them with some control at all times. While it’s not usually necessary to have dual controls as a learner drivers (such as when learning with a parent or friend, or in your own car), these pedals allow the driving instructor to take control of the brakes or accelerator if they have to take action to avoid or get you out of danger.
professional driving instructor
Most of the time it’s a much more comfortable experience learning to drive in a newer vehicle, not only because the interior is a lot more user friendly but the vehicle itself is less likely to give you trouble. For some learner drivers who might be have to contend with poor controls in the car they have at home, having access to an instructor’s vehicle lets them focus on learning to drive.
Driving Instructors
As a learner driver your attention should be firmly on the lesson at hand, and the last thing you need is car trouble lingering in the back of your mind. Driving instructor (such as those available through Driving Test Pro) are typically required to have to have a modern vehicle with a good ANCAP safety rating, insurance, and pass regular inspection for road worthiness.
The average number of driving education with a driving instructor is around 7 to 10 sessions. That means that if you’re with in Victoria or New South Wales, you’ll spend around 10 to 15 hours with a parent for every hour you spend with a driving instructor.
By spacing out your driving lessons with an instructor, you can find a balance between learning new driving skills or behaviors from a qualified professional and then practicing them in a more relaxed setting to gain confidence.
It’s already been mentioned that the Government is taking initiatives to encourage learner drivers to access driving instructors, but it’s actually a bit of a shortcut to getting your license too in some states.
Lesson Hours with driving instructor
1=3 Bonus hours. This scheme allows a learner driver to record 3 of recognized hours of driving experience for each hour of actual driving, for up to a total of 30 hours recorded from 10 hours of actual driving. In other words you can save yourself up to 20 hours of required driving practice by learning the right way from a professional.
When it comes time to take your driving test, you’ll be supervised by a dedicated driving exams assessor who will mark your competency for a variety of skills and behaviors, ranging from driving in traffic and obeying street signs, to slow speed maneuvers such as reverse parallel parking and 3 point turns.
Professional driving lessons
One of the best ways to prepare for your driving test is to take a few driving education with a driving instructor and go over what is expected of you during the test. By getting in a few practice runs with a qualified driving instructor in a more relaxed environment, you can use their professional feedback and guidance (without the pressure of instant failure for making a mistake) to build your confidence before moving on to the real test. While teaching your family or friends a new skill can feel very rewarding (especially as a parent), driving a car is quite a bit different to most other life skills. Accidents while travelling by vehicle continues to be one of the leading causes of death for Australians aged up to 44. It’s important to make sure that you maximize your safety by learning good behaviors and driving technique during this stage because it will be the formation of your future driving behavior. Any bad habits learnt now may not be so obvious while you’re driving under restrictions and with L or P plates granting you the lenience of extra-cautious traffic, but as soon as you graduate from your plates to your full license there’s an expectation that you’ll behave in a certain way on the road.
So does this all mean you should only use a driving instructor then?
A combination of driving lessons with parents (or friends) and professional driving instructors is shown to be the best approach to learning to drive safely. A few driving lessons with a qualified driving instructor will allow you to learn driving education without distractions, picking up the correct behaviors and techniques from an unbiased teacher in a high quality vehicle with safety assurance. Between sessions with your driving instructor you can then apply the skills and behaviors you’re learning to reinforce them, and then use your following lessons to gauge your improvement and get feedback on your progress.
Driving Test Pro-driving instructors success
By the end of your logbook, you should be confident, capable, and ready to build your driving education and pass your driving exams first time!
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