Learning To Drive: Nervous Wreck 3942

Honestly dude, if you offer to pay for driving school, they'd probably appreciate how seriously you're taking this. Approach them as saying, "Thanks for trying, but it's not fair to expect you to be driving instructors" and I bet they'll understand.

If your brother is a good driver, ask him. If he doesn't have time, at least you tried, but he'd probably be honored.

I grew up in upstate NY (near Buffalo) and there was a ton of driving schools, and they were mostly pretty cheap. Worst case use Google to find a driving school. I know near Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse there was a good number of schools that were considered good.

Practicing driving, and making sure you just constantly are alert are important. When you're learning don't get up early to go out driving, cause if you're tired it's a lot more difficult-dangerous. Don't do anything unless you're certain you can do it. That's a big one to remember.

If your teacher is cool with it, one of the best things I ever did was go to a parking lot and learn the limits of the car I was learning in. My instructor had me floor it to see how fast the car could accelerate, had me lock the tires to see how I'd lose control. We repeated it till I'd learned threshold braking. He also had me drive tight figure-8's to learn how to safely take a turn at speed when needed.

I'm not certain, but I think I had more than 4 hours experience in parking lots before I ever got on a public road. The right parking lot can be a great place just to become familiar with how hard you really need to push on the throttle, the brakes, how fast to turn the wheel, how to signal while steering, getting used to checking mirrors, etc.

These are NOT things to do with your friends on a Saturday night, but with a very experienced driver. Please let me make that very, very clear.

Even in a parking lot you can make bad mistakes, so it's a good idea to have someone extremely familiar with the car and driving there to warn you when you're nearing the limits. A 17 year old doesn't ever count as such.

Worst case, you might not be ready. I know that's not what you want to hear, but maybe ride a bike more instead. I'm not joking; it's a good way to familiarize yourself with the rules of the road and with the speeds of other vehicles.

Keep making the effort to learn and it will get easier, just remember to be careful about pulling in front of people, and accelerate reasonable quickly. The car won't break from going too fast for a second, but it will from going to slow and getting hit. Most of all, be careful and good luck.

Dave