Driver training for learner drivers?

I think it would be a good idea for my daughter to learn basic driving skills before being unleashed on the public road, because keeping an eye out for the idiots on the road nowadays is hard enough even when actually controlling the car is second nature.

As such does anyone know of any airfields, tracks or other private land that accomodate parents wishing to let their children gain this kind of experience ahead of the child’s 17th birthday?

Apologies if this is posted in the wrong place, in which case could a moderator please move this post to somewhere more appropriate?

My brother in-law did something like this for a day many, many years ago (he is now 31!!!). I went along to watch and seemed pretty proffesional type of affair.

http://www.msvdrivinggifts.com/youngdrive!.aspx?gclid=CO3Xsfmm254CFZ1h4wodzDTMJA

I think this is the kind of course.

I have seen something similar to these before. Poor value for money in my opinion, the thick end £100 for only 35 minutes behind the wheel. I would be very surpised if a first-timer learnt much in 35 minutes. With organisations like MoT being able to offer a full day of car control training in your own car for the same money or less I was hoping for something a little better.

Thanks for replying though, much appreciated.

 We will have such a day at Finmere in February. Details will be on our website soon.

This will not be a car control day in the way that current events are run but a full day of one to one tuition and group instruction on the mechanics and physics of skids, braking, acceleration etc. Think of it as a Pass Plus Extreme course. If wet roundabouts fill you with dread, you had a spin or near miss, or even just new to rear wheel drive this is for you.

As a total example, right outside my house just yesterday, a young lady in a Nova ran into the back of a DHL truck delivering to my house. She sat crying in the car and eventually we brought her in for a cup of tea. The one and only time she had performed any sort of emergency stop was in her driving test. In this instance she locked up the wheels and slid straight into the truck. It could have been avoided but she had never had the chance or the opportunity to practise.

As for your daughter at the moment, a good teaching skill is to taker her out in the passenger seat but that she has to tell you what to do. So obviously while you remain in total control of the car, you don’t do things unless she tells you to. It is a very good way to get two way dialogue, providing you keep it light hearted and stress free. You may need to prompt her for information, but also give her chance to give it, don’t just “pass on your wisdom” Remember to your daughter at 16, you have none! {#emotions_dlg.bigsmile}

 The web page is under development, so don’t get hung up on the helmets.

We will have one of the countries top instructors as well as other instructors and the day is about the practical side of skids and slides and the causes and avoidance in road driving. 15% of accidents are caused by skids and a dark Friday night is not the best time to be practising.

http://www.mazdaontrack.co.uk/skid-skool-76-c.asp

Oulton Park do a junior track day in their Astras, that will help sharpen handling skills. All under instruction and (I thought) reasonably priced.

As an (ex) response driving instructor, most of the problems these days is the same as years gone by, you pass your test then are let loose on public roads with only the tiniest amount of solo experience. Any advanced driving course will do her well and even lower her insurance if comploeted with the IAM.

Maybe ensuring she keeps the green ‘P’ plates on her car once she is qualified for 6-months or so will give her a fighting chance?

 

How? The other drivers who are idiots (ie most of them) will utterly ignore these. The other drivers who are not idiots wouldn’t be doing anything to intimidate or disadvatage another driver anyway.

No one sees these plates and changes their driving style, just like no one ever backs off from cars with “baby on board” stickers.  “I was tailgating this Civic, and half way through my phone call I spotted the P-plate and backed off” is not a sentence that anyone has ever used, ever.

Driver training is the only solution - observation and the skills to react to the observations. Although skidding around is a laugh too.

Thanks for the suggestions, people.

Whilst I can appreciate that Pass-Plus/IAM “advanced” training would be a good idea, my original query was for opportunities for my daughter to safely familiarise herself with the driver controls in a car, ahead of her being able to do this legally on crowded public roads.

In my youth, this wasn’t a problem because supermarkets were closed on Sundays and therefore their car parks were empty.

 

 

We’re doing the same thing with our daughter. She’ll be 17 in June and we’ve managed to find some quiet industrial estates near us and teach her the basics of driving - i.e. she knows how to pull away and change gear, do hill starts and stop.  Like you, I want her to be able to do it without having to think about it before she starts taking lessons to pass her test, but it’s very difficult finding places to teach her.

There used to be a place called the “Harrow Driving Center” in South Harrow. I first took to the wheel there when I was 16. I’m not sure if it’s still there tho.

I have found a place in Newark that does one-to-one pre-driver training using dual-control cars. Sessions of up to two hours long are available Monday - Saturday.

I know one driving training instute in  Bury St Edmunds  , Rougham.