am certain the methods described in this book will provide a very solid basic level of skills for your teen, but they are by no means the only ways to do things. Everybody’s experience is different; you have valuable knowledge of your own. Use it. This process should not be about the book teaching your child. The book is a starting place. The process should be about you teaching your child.
The Best Place to Start
Okay, the preliminaries are over. Your teen has acquired a learner’s permit; it’s time to let the student take control of the vehicle.
Where should you start?
The best place is a big, unoccupied parking lot. There are plenty of them around:
—an office building after hours
—a shopping mall early in the morning
—your local place of worship any weekday
—your high school parking lot
A high school lot could be doubly useful, if it contains painted lanes and pylons for driving instruction. Look around; you’ll find a suitable place. Try to find one that has several rows of spaces, so you can move along repeating and continuous patterns.
Empty parking lots are ideal because they offer plenty of space as well as defined areas; they are very forgiving of errors. The one I chose for my girls was in a nearby neighborhood park. It was perfect: two paved areas split by a grassy median and connected at both ends. It even had speed bumps, which also can be useful. Most important, although the lot was relatively small, it was almost always empty during weekdays after school. Find an empty parking lot, and you’ll be ready to begin the instruction.
THE FIRST DAY
Drive to your designated practice lot and pull into a parking space. Try to use a space with either a concrete stop or a curb at the end, so there is a visual reference. Put the gearshift in “park” (or neutral, if a manual transmission) and engage the parking brake. Turn the engine off. Switch seats, then...
Stop for just a moment and look at your child. Accept that he or she is not a child anymore. You both are about to begin a new relationship.
Before you start the vehicle again, your teen needs to learn what must eventually become an important habit:
The Pre-Drive Checklist
You should go over this list every time you begin a lesson, until the teen can perform all the actions without prompting.
—Fasten the seatbelt. If the vehicle has an automatic shoulder belt, adjust the lap belt as well. Make sure you are belted also.
—Adjust the seat. It should allow the driver’s foot to rest comfortably on the gas pedal without stretching, but it needs to be far enough away so the foot can be moved quickly from the gas to the brake—again, without stretching.
It’s important for the driver to be at least 10 inches away from the wheel if the vehicle is equipped with an airbag.
If the seat has other adjustments, such as height, make sure it is elevated enough to allow good visibility over the steering wheel and all around. A common mistake among many drivers is to keep the seat too low.
If the seat back can be adjusted, make sure it isn’t tilted backward too much. That can cause strain to the neck and arm muscles over time.
—Adjust the mirrors. All of the mirrors should be properly positioned to give the widest possible field of vision behind the vehicle. The center mirror should give an equal view to the right and left behind.
The side mirrors should show just the slightest view of the edge of the vehicle. This is important, because the vehicle edge gives the young driver a frame of reference for other vehicles and objects. On the other hand, if too much of the vehicle shows in the mirror, the driver’s field of vision is probably too narrow. That’s dangerous, because it will widen the blind spots.
Blind spots are gaps in vision, whether straight ahead or via the mirrors. If blind spots are large enough, other vehicles can occupy them and be hidden from the driver. That’s why you need to adjust the mirrors to help see behind and to the side, but you cannot rely upon them entirely.
—Adjust the head restraint. The back of the driver’s head should hit it in the center and should not have to travel more than a couple of inches before making contact.
—Adjust the steering wheel, if possible, so it’s comfortable. The best position is tilting slightly away from the vertical, and the wheel should be far enough away from the body that when gripped it draws the elbows away from the chest.
—Lock all of the doors. This adds a measure of security. Some vehicles even have automatic locks that engage as soon as you start moving forward. Locked doors are less likely to spring open in a crash, and they can prevent intruders—infrequent but real threats in today’s society—from getting in.
Getting a Grip
The hand position on the steering wheel has become even more important since the introduction of airbags. Most experts recommend the “nine o’clock/three o’clock” position, to keep the hands away from the airbag in case it inflates during a crash. It permits the rapid and easy movement of the wheel.
I also recommend either “ten o’clock/four o’clock,” or “eight o’clock/two o’clock,” depending on which feels more comfortable. Neither would interfere with the deployment of an airbag, and both offer plenty of control and flexibility, particularly if the hands are extended far enough away from the body.
The position to stay away from—in terms of both control and airbag safety—is with one or both hands at the top of the wheel. That’s common among drivers, but it interferes with effective vehicle control, and it invites injury if the airbag deploys.
Theme One of Five: CLEAR THE WAY
[TEENS]
As mentioned, the lessons in this book include the development of five main themes, that is, five approaches to driving that underlie everything else there is to learn.
We’ll cover the other four later. The first of the five is:
CLEAR THE WAY
It means never move the vehicle anywhere until you look first. You must constantly “clear” the way ahead or behind by looking, and you must stop or slow down whenever your ability to see where you’re going is restricted.
You should practice this from the very beginning and never forget it.
When you pull out of a parking space, make sure there is nothing immediately in front of or behind the vehicle. This should be done by looking around before you get in. No big deal. Just make a quick mental note. Are there any small children or pets nearby?
