An NRMA Safer Driving School survey has revealed that supervisors – parents, friends or relatives – need to do more preparation before teaching learners to drive.
A survey of 413 supervisors has revealed that only 52 per cent read the RTA learners’ kit and only 37 per cent read the road rules before supervising a learner driver.
NRMA Group CEO Tony Stuart said supervisors should prepare for teaching just as much as learner drivers should prepare for learning.
“Learner drivers need to be taught properly from the start otherwise they may develop bad habits,” Mr Stuart said.
The survey also revealed that just over half of supervisors (51 per cent), thought their experience teaching a learner driver could have been better. They said relationships could be strained by the experience.
Mr Stuart said supervisors who want to have a better driving experience with their learners should take advantage of a keys2drive session. Keys2drive is a free driving session that seats the supervisor and learner in a car with an accredited instructor.
“A free keys2drive lesson provides supervisors with a practical coaching approach they can use with their learner and focuses on teaching young drivers to reflect on what they are doing behind the wheel.”
Supervised learner drivers are some of the safest drivers on the road. But P1 drivers are among the most unsafe – about four times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than a driver aged 26 or older.
Are parents good driving teachers? Do you read up on the road rules before supervising a learner?
Parents do not make good teachers. They have bad habits. Instructors are paid to teach kids how to drive. It’s their day job. Let them teach. Pay the money. Give your child the best opportunity to be safe on the road.
I agree with Shaun, but it should also be compulsory that all learner drivers successfully complete an advanced driver training course to teach them defensive driving skills before being given their provisional licence. If you learn how to handle the characteristics of a vehicle, you will have some knowledge if something goes wrong on the road.
NO NO NO there should be a system in place like in Europe where only qualified driving schools can teach to drive. This would make the roads a lot saver than now!!!!!!!
Hi, My daughter has gained her red p’s in the past six months. I spent about 110 of the 120 hours as her supervisor. I took this role very seriously and did read up on the road rules beforehand. After reading the rules I started to notice how many ignorant/bad drivers there are on the road. Whilst my daughter still undertook 4 professional driving lessons I felt that they teach to pass a test. Six weeks after gaining her licence I sent my daughter to a defensive driving course to at least give her some more varied experience on car handling. Their education program was very good. Credits should be given to learners who undertake such courses.
I don’t think we should generalize! It all depends on the parent, their driving experience and ability and their relationship with their child. Some parents are good role models and make good driving instructors, while others probably don’t. However a combination of instruction from an experienced family member and a professional instructor should in most cases be adequate.
Some studies have shown that advanced driving courses DO NOT make safer drivers. Even the RTA does not recommend them for learners – they advise a learner is better off gaining their experience on the roads.
It should also be remembered that currently a learner is required to complete a minimum of 120 hours driving experience. While I believe every learner should have some formal instruction from a professional instructor it is not realistic to expect most parents to be able to afford to pay a driving school for all of the required hours, e.g. prices often start from $65 per hour (even if the number of required hours are reduced – currently 10 hours of professional instruction counts for 30 hours).
I am not aware of any statistical evidence that the roads are actually safer in European countries than in Australia! I think you will find that some European countries have a much higher road toll.
I taught my son the way my dad taught me then sent him for one professional lesson and they said there was nothing they could teach him and when my son did his test the tester came and complimented me on a job well done and said he was taught very well. At 120 hours no-one could afford professional lessons its hard enough on struggling families fuel wise to do 120 hours as it is. My son did 50 hours then all his red and green P’s in a V8 and a Supra (high powered cars) has never had an accident or a fine though police picked on him no end and kept pulling him over for licence and car checks. Lets face it we have to realise that some kids will just be idiots behind the wheel! Many adults are too! You will never stop that, but it sure makes it harder for the kids that do the right thing. And changing laws….Hey the people are breaking the law already! Does no-one realise that! Again makes it harder for the good ones, the bad ones are already breaking the law!
And yes our speed limits are ridiculous cars have better brakes, better safety equipment, better everything and our speed limits are getting lower and lower, all road tolls are bad but most accidents are caused by stupidity not speed, overtaking in stupid places, wrong speed for conditions, lack of concentration the list goes on. But lower and lower limits leads to more and more frustration, and boredom and frustration and boredom leads to stupidity and accidents.
oh and yes I read up on the road rules before teaching my son and then again before teaching my nephew, and will again before instructing my daughter, I trust myself with my kids lives better than a stranger! I also drummed into them the dangers on the road, the consequences of accidents, and that if they killed someone on the road they would have to live with that the rest of their days.
Also things like if they want to go out we are happy to drop them off and pick them up at ANY time as we would rather do that than get woken by the police! Also if they went out with a friend and didn’t feel safe going home with the friend to call us to pick them up as well, anything to keep them safe.
I dont take chances with my kids lives and don’t trust anyone else to instruct them as safely as I did! I guess it depends on how you look at this debate!
I have 4 children aged at present 33,30,26 & 24. I taught every one of them to drive. They all were at the RTA at 9.00am on the morning of their 16th birthday to get their L’s, They all obtained their P’s on the day of their 17th birthday. To this date, not one of them has had an acident and not one of them has been fined or pulled over for any offence, including parking. I am not a professional driver, just an every day Mum. But everytime the child on their L’s was home and I had to go somewhere in the car, they drove. My youngest clocked up over 400 hours in her log book. I don’t think you have to pay someone to teach your child to drive because it will be that only the wealthly will be ble to afford to obtain a drivers licence. Common sense,a good personal drivers record, good judgement & practice, practice, practice is the key to teaching your children how to drive.
Whilst I agree that there is no substitute for experience, and the 120 hours now required in NSW is one way to get that experience, it is not realistic to expect parents to pay for 100 hours of instruction from a qualified driving instructor (10 hours can be used as 30 hours) with a cost of approx $6,500.
Unfortunately, most people believe that they are above average drivers on the road. This means that many think they are better than they really are. Many parents have bad habits that can be passed on to their children when they are taught. However, many make excellent teachers as well.
I am a parent and taught my daughter 3 years ago and performed the majority of the teaching. Towards the end of the required 50 hours instruction, I paid for some lessons with a qualified instructor. I am now teaching my second child and I admit that I am not a perfect driver and again will pay for professional instruction at the end of the 120 hours. I did research both times before teaching my children.
At the end of the day, there are good and not so good parent drivers and the system is partly at fault.
One driving test to get your licence for life is just not enough. Drivers should be tested at least every 5 to 10 years so that we can all be confident that we are capable to drive on our roads.
My solution is this: Before any person is permitted to teach young drivers, I believe that they should be subjected to the same testing that is expected of our children. i.e. a knowledge test on the road rules and a practical driving test.
No matter how much instruction a person receives or by whom, unfortunately, there will always be young people who think they are indestructable when they get their licence and will do stupid things on the road.
Part of every learner driver’s instruction should include a presentation/lesson from a paraplegic or quadraplegic you was injured in a crash as a young driver. This would be an attempt to drive home what can and does happen to young drivers and hopefully encourage safer driving in the early unsupervised years when the additional much needed experience is being gained.
As an infrequent user of etag I find I have been caught in other places as I didn’t know which roads use the etag system.
In most other educational systems, the instructor has to be qualified- even cooking!! Why then are untrained and quite often ignorant of the road rules parents allowed to let instruct others??? maybe adults need to go through the licence test again before they are allowed to teach others. I am on the road quite a bit, and I have seen alot of cases where L-platers do wrong, but surely if the adult training them knew the rules properly they would not have done wrong. 2 examples are: taking wrong lanes at roundabouts, even when there are arrows clearly painted on the ground prior to the roundabout, allowing the L-plater to run red lights.
WHO is teaching learner drivers to use turn signals only while (or after) they’re actually changing lanes or making a turn and not before – and WHY are RTA examiners giving licences to drivers who do this?
Or have the rules changed since I got my licence and now it’s OK to not use turn signals at all or to use them in a way which is completely useless and/or misleading to other road users?
I had finish my driving course and I had bad experiences with the instrutor who was interested in rip off my money. He tried to sell me more driving hour lesson.
When I wanted him to instruct me more about reverse parking. His answer was ” the world does not rotate just reverse parking “. I think govn should control driving school’s standards and ethics.
To all you parents who whinge about the cost of teaching your sibling how to drive, you should sit back and consider the cost when this student dies in a road accident. People like Collen Cresswell are the exception rather than the rule. I bet your kids are also polite, well behaved and considerate towards others. You are probably an ‘old fashion’ parent and for that I congratulate you and commend you. Well done Collen.
Phillip Enderby, maybe it’s time to have a driving simulator similar to those used in training/assessing/testing new aircraft pilots. In these fabulous machines, you can simulate various conditions and therefore practice various scenarios. These could be used to teach our children how to drive as well as refreshing our existing drivers.