Driving Lessons Getting Started
First you need to apply for your Provisional Driving Licence. You can do this up to 3 months before your 17th birthday so you’re ready to start there and then. To do this you need to head to the official DSA website and follow the instructions from there.
Next you need to choose your driving school.
There are many around so this can be a confusing task. You want to look at a number of things like how much information about your lessons is given on their website. Is it clear and well laid out. Are the prices clear? Make sure you’re aware of lesson length as some schools will seem cheap but secretly their lessons are only 45 -50 minutes.
How much useful information and lesson help is there on the website? The more information there is the faster you will learn and so the less money you will end up spending! And a lot of the time it shows the more they care about you. If they have a lot of information for you then it shows they’re keen for you to have a thorough learning experience so you become that safe driving for life.
Look out for Lesson help like tutorials, walk-throughs and manoeuvre explanations. A blog is a good sign too that they want to give you as many tips and new information as possible when it becomes available. A blog is an excellent way for a driving school to have a personal touch.
Next are you looking to learn in a manual car or an automatic.
It’s important to remember if you learn in an automatic and pass in an auto, you cannot drive a manual car under that licence.
However if you choose and then pass in a manual car, you can drive both manual AND automatic.
You need to make this decision based on what your plans might be for the future. If you have any thought that one day you might want or need to drive a manual, then that’s the way to go.
Of course if time and money are both tight it may well be worth heading down the automatic route but just be aware of the possible restrictions.
Spare a thought next for the size of car the driving school uses.
The smaller the car the easier it will be to drive and the faster you’ll learn.
They say you must ‘walk before you can run.’ And it’s very much the same here.
It makes sense to start in a small car and then work your way up as and when you need to - when you have more experience on the road.
I’ve had a variety of different tuition cars and I can honestly say that the bigger the car got, the worse my pass rate was. So this little tip is definitely from first-hand experience. I quickly changed back to a slightly smaller car again and my pass rate returned to normal.
Think of the size your first car will be.....
Finally have a thought about when you would like to be passing your test - and so how many lessons you will need a week to achieve this goal.
It’s good to have a goal in mind and to set targets or you’ll find yourself just going through the motions and not getting anywhere. Visualise having that driving licence and not needing us anymore - That should be enough to get you going!
If you set yourself a time target, and even a (slightly negotiable) money target, you’ll find yourself saving a lot of both.
Jason Vines
