Teaching your child to drive is often a terrifying experience for parents, and many learner drivers choose to supplement on-road experience with their driving instructor for some driving lessons with mum and dad. But when learners get behind the wheel with a parent, they might have just as much to fear.
According to a survey of more than 800 drivers aged 16-19, one third said their parents had taught them bad driving habits – which then had to be corrected by an instructor. The survey also found learner drivers were being exposed to their parents’ bad habits, with the worst offending habits being:
- Speeding
- Not indicating
- Mobile phone use; and
- Road rage
Almost 61% of learner drivers said their parents struggled to teach them fundamentals such as how to parallel park, merge and check blind spots. What’s more, nearly 50% of those surveyed stated that mum or dad did not have the knowledge of road rules that’s required to successfully pass licencing exams.
It also revealed that 30 per cent of respondents have had their parents/supervising driver teach them something that their instructor has claimed was wrong. The majority of these related to roundabouts -specifically when to indicate.
“Reverse parallel parking. Mum tried to teach me, but she doesn’t have a step by step method that she goes by, she just does it by feel. In this case this is what I needed as a learner.”
Even if you think you’re pretty good behind the wheel, driver inexperience is one of the biggest reasons young people are more likely to get into crashes and it’s the leading cause of death for teenagers. The only way to reduce that risk is for them to gain more experience behind the wheel.
Discover more from Magari Poa
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.