The up-front story about learning to drive

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Date: 2007-02-05

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A Drivers.com Editorial

If you could hear some of the stories driving instructors and driver examiners have to tell one another you'd know that there's a lot more to learning to drive than meets the eye, or any of the other senses for that matter.

The New Drivers section of Drivers.com will bring you some of these stories later on, and they'll show you that learning to drive can be a vastly different experience for different people. They'll also show you that the more you know about driving the more fascinating driving becomes.

If you ask, for example, how long it takes to learn to drive (a common question from people learning to drive) you'll have to be prepared for a long answer and a short one. The short answer is that, for most individuals, it takes about an hour to learn the basics of starting, stopping and turning. If you want the long answer you'll need to answer another question first: how good a driver do you want to be?

Professional driving instructors generally reckon that it takes somewhere between 25 and 50 hours of behind-the-wheel experience for the average novice driver to get enough skills to function in basic traffic situations. That would normally be enough to learn to pass a basic driving test in most parts of the world. But there is much more to driving than that.

What does "good" mean?

People talk about being a "good" driver, but what does this mean? What does it take to become good? Suppose, for example, you wished to become accomplished at some sport or game such as football, golf, chess, or basketball. How much practice time and training would you plan on? Someone who takes up basketball would hardly expect to be an accomplished player after just 25 to 50 hours. A serious player will plan on years of practice. And no player will get anywhere near the top without lots of input from professional coaches.

Bearing this is mind, isn't it interesting, that, when surveyed about their driving abilities, most drivers will admit that they have never taken any kind of professional coaching beyond the basic program required for licensing. And yet, most rate their ability as 8-9 out of a possible 10! Driving is not a competitive activity (although some are confused about this), and there is no scoreboard to measure ability, so just about anyone can fool themselves into thinking that they're very good.

If you want to test your imagination about the possibilities for developing driving skills beyond the basics ask yourself what it would be like to sit in the passenger seat of a car driven by a driving superstar-not a race-driving star, but a street-driving star with the talent of, lets say, basketball's Michael Jordan, tennis's Andre Agassi, or ice hockey's Wayne Gretzky.

The goal of the New Drivers section is to help you, the novice driver, tackle the basics of learning to drive and begin to explore the fascinating world of driving. Social scientists have been studying novice drivers for years, but there is a lot they don't know, and we'll discuss that, too. You are regarded as high risk, and we'll tell you why. Visit us now and then to keep up to date. If you have ideas or suggestions please let us know at pde@drivers.com.

The skills of driving

Basic driving is a combination of hand/eye coordination skills, vehicle handling skills, and traffic knowledge. Advanced driving is, more than anything else, a combination of decision making and management skills that include judgment, psychology, sociology, diplomacy, tactics and strategy. We'll discuss all of these and try to relate them to learning other activities that also require a mixture of skills and knowledge. However, there's not many activities as complex as learning to drive-if you want to do it well, that is.

A word of warning

Driving is very much a decision-making task, and good decisions depend on good information. Ninety percent of that information comes through the eyes. In other words, you can't be an expert driver without an understanding of how vision and perception works. The good news is that this can be one of the most interesting topics you will ever explore.

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