Learning to drive is an exciting and nervous time for learners.
It's important to make sure that, as a supervisory driver, you help to ease those nerves and give them the best start.
First, make sure you're ready to supervise a learner:
Your licence: you must hold a full, unrestricted licence for at least 12 consecutive months and ensure you have plenty of experience to help your learner driver.
Your blood alcohol limit: should be under 0.5, the same as if you were driving.
Your phone: is off-limits, even hands-free. You need to be alert and paying attention to what your learner is doing.
Ready to head out on a drive?
To help give your learner the best start to their journey:
Start simple. Learning to drive for the first time can be an overwhelming experience so you don't want to take your learner straight out onto a highway. Quiet, wide streets or empty car parks are a great place to start so your learner can nail the basics first.
Pick one focus. Whether it's merging, roundabouts or parallel parking, picking a focus for each session helps your learner concentrate and doesn't overwhelm them.
Match roads to ability. At first your learner is probably not going to be confident enough to navigate a highway or a steep road. Make sure you give them the space and time to become fully confident in their abilities before you introduce trickier roads or busy highways.
Log your time. Whilst it's a requirement to log trips either in the paper logbook or in the Plates Plus app, it's also a great tool to help understand where your learner might need to develop more. For example, they might have practised driving during the day in rain but not at night. It's important to make sure they're confident in all road types and weather conditions over time.
Debrief after lessons. Discuss what went well and give constructive feedback for the learner to work on. Make sure you ask them where they think they could improve, as this helps shape future sessions.
The most important thing to reinforce for your learner is how important safety is while driving.
You can emphasise safe driving practices like checking your blind spot and keeping a safe following distance by modeling these behaviours yourself when you're driving so your learner observes the correct behaviours.
Learning to drive can be a daunting experience for both the learner and supervisor. One way to ease any concerns is to book a lesson with our Driver Training team. Lessons are conducted in the safety of a dual-control car with a qualified professional. A 50 minute lesson with us also counts as double the time in your logbook, helping your learner gain their hours faster.
You're invited too: we allow supervisor drivers to join their learner in the car so you can keep the lessons rolling smoothly, even without an instructor.
