This is part 1 of a two part article I am posting to give tips on how to teach better car control to new drivers. Keep current with our emails and blog posts and watch for part two soon.
Avoid Tunnel Vision
If you watch a beginner as they drive, or just think back to when you were first learning to drive, you'll notice that beginning drivers tend to have tunnel vision. They only seem to focus on one small area of the road near the front of the car, and they seldom move their eyes to other areas. Every beginner driver I have ever taught was so worried about just staying inside the lane, that their whole driving world was reduced to the tiny space in front of their vehicle. They believed if they took their eyes off this area, they would drift off the road. That is crazy talk, right? But hey, I get it. I felt the same way when I was learning to drive. But that way of thinking does nothing to help vehicle control or safety. In fact, it only makes it more difficult and dangerous.
“Keep ya head up, ooh, child, things are gonna get easier” - Tupac
Keep Your Head Up
A simple way to help a beginning driver get better control of their car and stay in their lane is to tell them to focus on a target much farther up their lane of traffic and to let their peripheral vision do the rest. This works because it’s much easier to make small adjustments while steering toward a target that’s farther away rather than making bigger adjustments as you aim at a target close by. A good distance for them to focus on is about 15 to 20 seconds ahead. This should give them enough time to adjust gradually to whatever happens ahead. An easy way for them to associate 15 to 20 seconds with varying speeds is by having them sit in the passenger seat and pick out objects up the road they believe are 15 to 20 seconds away.
Then while you are driving, they count the time it takes to reach them.
Simple enough, right? You might actually want to try this technique yourself, because who knows, maybe you’re not looking far enough up the road either. The reason distance is talked about in terms of time is because the distance you want to look up is directly related to your speed. It wouldn’t do you much good to only look a 100 feet up the road if you were traveling at 60 mph, would it? However, if you were traveling at 3 mph, then looking up 100 feet would be just fine.
Teaching Driving is full of helpful information like this to learn how to successfully teach and train your teen from making some of these rookie mistakes. Check out the full program here, and don’t forget to keep up with us on social media and our newsletter.
Stay tuned for the second part of this article soon and until then, stay safe!
Drew