Driving Lessons (A Professional Guide)

Welcome to this series of articles that will cover learning to drive with a professional driving instructor.Driving Lessons

Driving Lessons

Learning to Drive. (Part One)

Many students are naturally nervous and apprehensive when attending their first driving lesson. The main reason being that it’s a step into the unknown because they don’t really know what to expect. The fear of driving in busy traffic, dealing with town center or complex roundabouts is a daunting task.

In this series of learning to drive articles, we will attempt to put your mind to rest and explain the format that professional driving lessons will follow with Kelvin White Driving school.

Your first Driving Lesson.

First of all, we will explain the procedure for beginners or those with very little driving experience.

Your assigned Kelvin White Driving School instructor will come to meet you at the pre- arranged pick up location, this could be at your home, college, work or anywhere else you choose. Make sure you have your photo card driving licence with you as the driving lesson will not be able to take place without it.

The driving instructor will then drive you to a suitable location. By suitable, I mean a very quiet location that is relatively free from traffic and parked cars. The reason the instructor will drive and not you is to ensure you get off to the best possible start and build confidence.

Occasionally, I have had phone calls from parents a little surprised to find that they are paying for driving lessons only to find that their son or daughter is not driving the car immediately. This is one of the major differences when using a professional driving instructor as in most cases, it would be irresponsible to allow the student to drive at this time and could lead to a major loss of confidence.

One real life example:

We received one particular phone call inquiring about driving lessons and during the initial conversation, our customer services team discovered the young lady has taken driving lessons around two years previously and as always in this case, we were keen to find out about any previous driving experience in order to fully understand the callers requirements.

The young lady explained that she took her one and only driving lesson over two years ago and had not driven since. When exploring further, we established that the whole experience had left her so distraught that she had not been able to face the prospect of driving again until now.

So went so drastically wrong?

It would seem her driving instructor arrived at her home address and established that not only had she had never taken a driving lesson, she had never even sat on the driving side. He then delivered a controls lesson and within 10 minutes they were moving off!

The pick up address was just 50 metres from a very busy dual carriageway at which she was required to emerge into two lanes of traffic and almost immediately deal with a right turn on the busiest roundabout in the town. It would seem unsurprisingly that her instructor had to take physical control on several occasions during the initial few minutes and again quite soon after to deal with a busy zebra crossing.

The bizarre thing is they then drove to a quiet housing estate to continue the lesson!

The young lady went on to explain that she found the whole experience very traumatic and and hadn’t been in the driving seat since.

When asked why she had now plucked up the courage to try again, she replied that we were currently teaching her mum and was persuaded to have another go.

When learning a new skill, the easier the task is made, the more success is likely. Depending where you live, there could be all sorts of complex driving tasks to complete and when you consider the student as has no tuition on basic moving off and stopping skills the task becomes very stressful for both parent and student.

Before Attempting to Move Off.

Unless you have previous driving experience and are completely happy to begin the driving lesson by driving from the pick up point, your instructor should drive you to a suitable location to commence the lesson. The first few lessons should be success based and tailored to boost your confidence.

Before attempting to move off, the instructor will conduct an eyesight test:

You must be able to read (with glasses or contact lenses, if necessary) a car number plate made after 1 September 2001 from 20 meters.

Then you will swap seats so you are sitting in the driving seat. At this time, you will be asked for your driving licence so the details can be recorded. While the driving instructor is completing this task, you will be given a copy of Kelvin White Driving School terms and conditions. After you have read through them, any questions will be answered and you will be asked to sign two copies, one for you and one for the Driving School records.

Cockpit Drill.

At this point, your instructor will go through various steps to ensure you are sitting in a comfortable driving position, the doors are firmly closed and seat belts are adjusted correctly.

The basic controls of the car will now be explained that will be relevant to the current lesson.

In part two of this learning to drive series, we will cover the procedure for moving off and stopping safely.

Kelvin White Driving School operates in the following locations and more information can be accessed by clicking your relevant area.