Driving Lessons

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nicknamealguem
  • 41 comments
  • 2,894 views
Nicknamealguem

Nicknamealguem

Messages
4,387
Portugal
Lisboa
I started my driving lessons today, after finishing all my 28 code lessons. The driving experience is not quite what I expected, and I am finding it a bit difficult, since I never drove before. One of my biggest problems is the coordination between my members since I can only seem to focus on one thing at the time, so steering plus pedal work plus changing gear is not showing to be an easy task :yuck: and in overall, I am not not quite liking the experience of driving at all (to this moment)…:indiff:

So, for people who already drive or people that are taking on driving lessons, how were or how are being your first experiences with driving a car?
 
Don't worry mate, you'll get it, the only thing i'm still having a bit of trouble with is changing down gears before turning, I always seem to bring the clutch up too quick.
 
As an inexperienced but qualified driver myself, I can safely say that confidence plays a major role in driving and in learning to drive. There are three things that can help. 1) Practice 2) Practice and 3) Practice. The more hours you spend with a qualified instructor, the better. I took about 30 hours of lessons in total, and spent about the same again with my parents. As you become more fluent with the mechanics of driving, you'll become more confident and able to focus on the important things, like not hitting anything! I was surprised to discover that I find driving to be quite stressful, and as such, I wouldn't say I enjoy it much - but even so, once you learn the basics and attain a certain level of confidence in your abilities, it does become alot easier, but it does require time and effort...
 
I would like to second TM's (back to Mars, I see :p) comments. To be good at anything you have to practice. And while I never had an instructor, short of my parents, I think I came out a pretty decent driver.

Find a nice, open parking lot at night when the stores are closed and drive. A lot. As much as kids hate to hear it, listen to your parents! They've been doing this longer than you have! The concept of letting off the gas, depressing the clutch, changing gears while turning and easing the gas while releasing the clutch is tricky (never mind hills). But with enough seat time, you'll get to the point where you'll just do things automatically without having to think them through step by step.

While eating a burger and fries.

Not that I would do that.
angel0.gif
 
I was horrible at driving when I first started. Don't worry, it gets a lot easier. I remember driving down the road in a 55 mph zone thinking that 45 mph was the absolute fastest I was willing to go. :lol:
 
I remember hating the clutch pedal in the early stages of learning to drive. I was alright to begin with - moving off and stopping down a quiet side road - but by about the 4th or 5th lesson, a lesson being an hour, I was moving out into traffic proper and would panic. I sort of got the hang of using a clutch about 12-13 lessons in, and by about 16 it wasn't really a problem. Now I don't really think about it. As TM and TB have said, the more confidence you have the better you'll be, and you'll only get confidence through practice. So don't give up, it'll come to you eventually!
 
Nicknamealguem
So, for people who already drive or people that are taking on driving lessons, how were or how are being your first experiences with driving a car?
Click to expand...

My first driving experience was me being 14, my dad passed out in the passenger seat from too much booze and saying 'drive 🤬-er!' It was from the coast to a town about an hour inland and about 1 am :S I was so scared I have never driven before let alone at night but it was an auto and just needed to keep it at 60mph. I wasn't sweating bullets until I got into town lol. I forgot I turn right on a red light and got honked at, I really flipped out.. 'what the-'..oh yea. I also think it was the first time I actually felt sweat drip from my arm pits too. Now that only happens when playing GT :) Like Chris said, just practice and you will be fine.

Jerome
 
TB
I would beg to differ if I'd ever attempted such a thing. :trouble:
Click to expand...

Knee on the wheel, burger in hand, rowing the gears with my only free arm? I'd care not to repeat :nervous:
 
Yeah, I got killer gas mileage in my car until I got comfortable with driving.
 
Nicknamealguem
I started my driving lessons today, after finishing all my 28 code lessons. The driving experience is not quite what I expected, and I am finding it a bit difficult, since I never drove before. One of my biggest problems is the coordination between my members since I can only seem to focus on one thing at the time, so steering plus pedal work plus changing gear is not showing to be an easy task :yuck: and in overall, I am not not quite liking the experience of driving at all (to this moment)…:indiff:

So, for people who already drive or people that are taking on driving lessons, how were or how are being your first experiences with driving a car?
Click to expand...

It'll get better :)

The first lessons are always difficult. My friend had his first one yesterday and nearly drove into a bus. Twice. My first one, however, involved me doing about 4 involuntary burnouts (much to the disapproval of passers by), and then practically screaming at the sight of a Suzuki Vitara that was rounding the corner towards me.

As is always the case (and as previously stated), practice is the key. Even the trickiest stuff starts to come together after a while - changing gear, for example. At the minute it might be torture, but eventually you won't even have to think about it.
 
I think my experience matches most people here in that I was scared to death when it came to learning to drive. I was so scared that I pretty much refused to drive, which meant my parents had to force me. And once I got my license I still didn't have nearly enough practice to be out alone so I still only drove when I absolutely had to.

And then we got the GTI and suddenly there was no stopping me from jumping behind the wheel.
 
Well, I grew up in the country, so I started driving motorcycles and karts when I was about 10 and real cars when I was about 12 :lol: so by the time I took actual driver training I had the basics down. I remember we moved house when I was about 14 and I made a number of late-night pickup truck runs from Pennsylvania down to the new place in Maryland, following my father in another car. I went to the first day of Driver's Ed knowing how to drive a stick. My instructor had me drive for the first session or two and then gave all the rest of my seat time to my partner!

Driving is all about practice, as others have said. Get your parents to take you out later at night when traffic is not as heavy. You need to focus on everything to be safe, but really concentrate your practice on a single issue in each session. You will get the hang of it rather quickly once you get a little more experience.
 
Duke
Driving is all about practice, as others have said. Get your parents to take you out later at night when traffic is not as heavy.
Click to expand...

If you're learning how to drive stick, go to parking lots after places close and spend a lot of time learning there. Residential streets with little worry about other cars are also great places to practice.

Just don't jump into driving around downtown New York on day two.
 
I was thinking of starting a same sort of thread. My problem is nerves. I drive manual, and I haven't stalled after the 2nd or 3rd hour of driving, but I am alsways scared that I will stall the car at a set of lights and inconvienience everyone. I love driving, but I haven't got my hours up because if I'm doing a route which I don't know about, with a junction on a hill (I can hill hill starts no problem, but under pressure is another story), I get nervous.

Anyway to get over the nerves?
 
I used to practice in a Church parking lot, when no one was there. I can remember the first time on a public road, the terror of an oncoming car.Man I was petrified ,it seemed as though the lane was the size of the car. Well that was in the 70s so it was pretty close. Practice,Practice,Practice...and leave the cell phone at home. :)
 
We have all been there, i HATED driving when i was learning, now? Hell you cant pull me away from the car haha just practice and listen to the good advice being given here. itsd all to your benefit!
 
I'm approaching the end of my lessons now. Quite confident on most things but I still occasionally stall it because sometimes I don't use a lot, if any gas to pull away. My manoeuvres are very good as is my gear changing. I think I'll pass between 26 and 30 hours
 
Ah, driving, my nemesis, well not really. Not done any since about 2 years ago, the driving was fine but I could never get that hazard perception test done (embarrassingly), don't know why, ignorance/arrogance probably. Need to sort it out again, probably try and get the theory done before I jump back in to lessons again.
 
My first lessons don't seem to be as interesting as everyone elses! I chose an instructor that one of my friends had used, just a bloke rather than a company like BSM or whatever. My friend had blitzed his test easily so I thought that was good enough recommendation. I'd never driven a car previous to my first lesson.

For my first lesson he drove me out onto a fairly simple road out in the country and we stopped on a longish straight at the side of the road. We went through the controls, which I already knew so he pressed on a bit and we did things like finding the biting point of the clutch, slowly pulling off, rolling along in 1st and then stopping again. Next we went onto gears, went up to second, third and slowed to a stop again. By the end of the two hour lesson we'd been up and down through all the gears, done some simple corners and hit 60mph on this quiet country road!

Subsequent lessons got more difficult. The one thing I did struggle with was in low-speed manoeuvres remembering to depress the clutch when I wanted to come to a stop rather than just brake, which would stall the car.

I think I did about 18 lessons in total and passed the test first time, so I was pretty chuffed with that!

As everyone else has said though, the biggest, most important thing is to practice as much as you're able to.
 
I didn't have lessons. We would put the 'L's on the front and back of the car, one of my parents would jump in, and we'd be off.
 
80Y 2C2
I didn't have lessons. We would put the 'L's on the front and back of the car, one of my parents would jump in, and we'd be off.
Click to expand...

Neither of my parents had cars really suitable for learning in, and the cost of adding me to the insurance in order to do so would have been prohibitive.
 
homeforsummer
Neither of my parents had cars really suitable for learning in, and the cost of adding me to the insurance in order to do so would have been prohibitive.
Click to expand...

Really? I've seen a Bentley Continental GTC with 'L's on. My friend learnt to drive in his Grandma's CLS, and his parents ML. My other friend learnt to drive in a Toyota Prado (I think that's the land cruiser for the UK people) which is bigger than an escalade.

What is less suitable than those?
 
80Y 2C2
My problem is nerves. I drive manual, and I haven't stalled after the 2nd or 3rd hour of driving, but I am alsways scared that I will stall the car at a set of lights and inconvienience everyone.
Click to expand...

Just don't worry about it. Other people inconvenience everyone for far less important reasons than learning to drive.

DaddyVDUB
I can remember the first time on a public road, the terror of an oncoming car. Man I was petrified ,it seemed as though the lane was the size of the car.
Click to expand...

That kept my mother from driving for the better part of 15 years. When they were first married my father was teaching my mother to drive in the early '50s. Every time a car came the other way she would pull 2 wheels off the side of the road because she shied away so much. That led to a huge argument and she quit trying. Finally, 15 years later, she finally got back in the saddle, and from then on, look out.

80Y 2C2
I didn't have lessons. We would put the 'L's on the front and back of the car, one of my parents would jump in, and we'd be off.
Click to expand...

Well, that's pretty much how I learned too, but when I was getting to be legal age, Driver's Ed was part of the high school curriculum for everyone. Some states still do that but some states make you get lessons from an independent driving school. My daughter learned in high school, but we also took her out. I took her to an empty industrial park on the Sunday before she was supposed to start her in-car instruction and we spent the afternoon putting around so she could get the feel for it.
 
The only thing I struggled with was smooth gear changes. My initial four lessons were a bumpy affair until one day I completed a smooth gear change. Once I had actually done it, I knew what I was doing wrong. I had a total of 23 lessons (1 a week, it was all I could afford at the time).

We didn't have the hazard awareness test back then, just the theory which I passed with 34 out of 35. In the actual test I got three minors.

It will all come to you soon enough and then you'll be wondering what all the fuss was about.
 
Thanks for the tips guys.

So it seems I have to grab my father and my father’s car and practice, practice and practice, though it is not that easy, because in the driving class/lessons, the instruction cars have the pedals in both the driver’s side and in the passenger side, where the instructor is, so, if anything goes wrong he can always break, or he can control the car from there, so, I am a bit afraid of driving my father’s car, still. And it seems police is everywhere we don’t want them to be nowadays.

I heard that some schools have simulators and they send people there before they have the normal driving lessons with a real car. I think that would be cool to “fast learn” the pedal work and gear shifting without worrying with real traffic and having an accident. But maybe it would create some confusion when dealing with a real car.

In the end, think I was with an eluded idea that driving was really easy, or so my friends told me so, and deception took out the first lesson. Hopefully today I’ll feel less nervous about it 👍
 

Latest Posts

Back