Children watch closely how their parents drive. Especially if they have a parent as a ‘driving instructor’. In the UK you can get driving lessons from your parents, but British driving instructors notice that these are sometimes bad advisors.
In the Netherlands it is illegal to learn to drive a car from someone other than a licensed driving instructor, but it is allowed in the UK. Often it is parents who teach their children to drive. Due to the corona measures, this has happened much more often than usual recently. Now that driving school lessons are back, many British professional driving instructors are finding that teenagers have been taught bad things by their parents.
According to Young Driver, which offers driving lessons to children from 10 to 17 years old in closed areas, nearly 9 out of 10 driving instructors have noticed bad driving behavior in young people who have ‘led’ with their parents. It’s not just about things that have crept in, but also potentially dangerous driving behavior that teenagers were really taught by parents.
You may recognize that looking in the mirrors quickly decreases after getting your driver’s license. This is also the most striking ‘bad driving behaviour’ that parents teach their children. There is much less looking in mirrors by teenagers who received driving lessons from their parents. The way in which the steering wheel is held also leaves much to be desired and the speed is exceeded more often. In addition to driving behaviour, operating the car also suffers from parental lessons. For example, the clutch is handled unwisely and teenagers learn a way of switching that is not seen as desirable.
The ten worst learned habits
- Do not follow the ‘mirror-blinker-maneuver’ routine
- Steer with one hand or don’t grab the handlebars in tight turns
- Insufficient observation of the environment
- Driving down a hill with clutch pedal depressed
- Speeding
- Downshifting per gear instead of all at once to the correct gear
- Don’t drive forward carefully at a obscure intersection to get an overview
- Driving too much on the clutch
- Impatient/aggressive driving
- Believing myths about driving, such as “you don’t have to have your hands on 10 to 2 anymore” or “you can also indicate too often”
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl