Selecting driving schools and driver education for your teen
When it comes to selecting both classroom driver education and actual driving training there are many options available. On-line verses classroom; basic instruction verses advanced skills. One thing that parents can do is to educate themselves about the different options and what is best for their new teen driver.
One of the most important concepts to remember is that as a parent you will almost certainly have far more influence on your teen's driving than someone who will only be with them a few hours. We cannot expect event the best driving educators to make up for time we don't spend mentoring our teens and they venture behind the wheel of our vehicles.
We also need to consider the individual personality of our teens and under what situation they learn the best. Although a reasonable way to learn about different schools it through talking with other parents we should remember that teens learn differently.
Driver Education (classroom portion)
You may remember your driver education experience in high school being taught perhaps by your health, physical education or math teacher. Although the education code requires schools to offer the classroom portion of driver training, the schools that do offer the class frequently have limited space or offer it at a time that does not fit into your teen's busy schedule.
Don't underestimate the importance of the "ground school" segment. This is where teens learn the basic laws and rule of the road. We can't reasonably expect our soon-to-be drivers to remember everything they are exposed to during these lessons. By finding a school that best fits their learning style you can maximize what they do retain.
Driver Training (On the road portion)
There are many different theories and methods of teaching the driving portion of our teen's roadway education. By law only six hours are required (compared with 50 hours of supervised driving by parents). Again, look for a school whose teaching methods are complementary to your teen's learning style.
Look for experienced schools and instructors who operate safe and teen-appropriate vehicles. This can be a very intimidating experience so making sure your teen is in a comfortable situation is important. For some attending with a friend might make for a better learning environment. For others this might create more pressure and not be an ideal situation.
There have been numerous studies on the effectiveness on driving school ability to reduce the crash risk for new drivers. Unfortunately many of these studies show attending a driving school does not reduce the risk of collisions for new drivers. Depending on how your teen learns driving schools can still be an valuable component to the overall education experience. You may have been telling your new driver about certain aspects of driving for the last several months but now that they have heard it from an outside source it may be more believable!
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