Teaching a teenager to drive
- Thread starter L-boy
- Start date
- Jun 11, 2014
- 5,844
- 10
Founding Member
You should find a local class for her. It was the most helpful thing I ever did when I was learning to drive.
- Jun 12, 2014
- 9,638
- 25,682
Founding Member
This came up this weekend as my niece is 16 and best friend's daughter is 16. They both failed their actual road test. I had no idea drivers ed wasn't taught in high school anymore. When did that happen? Damn we had a blast in that class.
- Jun 19, 2014
- 9,556
- 15,657
Founding Member
Drivers ed at Tarpon High was like weightlifting, an extra study hall/bull **** period.
- Jun 10, 2014
- 16,578
- 20,016
Founding Member
- Jun 9, 2014
- 19,752
- 27,649
Founding Member
Wasn't Jed one of the instructors?
- Jun 19, 2014
- 9,556
- 15,657
Founding Member
- Feb 13, 2016
- 2,681
- 3,332
- Jun 11, 2014
- 34,962
- 33,097
Founding Member
- Jun 12, 2014
- 16,336
- 14,797
Founding Member
Find a large empty parking lot, and start there. Grandfather was a mechanic and he took me out to a school parking lot on the weekend. Made sure I knew how to do the basics, then how to break a spin and other emergency technics. The out to a country road to learn how to drop the hammer.
- Jun 11, 2014
- 1,847
- 1,686
Founding Member
j/k - i wish no ill on anyone
you are absolutely nothing, if part of your learning to drive does not include a dirt road or two, and fish tailing - sometimes you city slickers make me wanna puke
Last edited:
- Jun 12, 2014
- 3,571
- 5,404
Founding Member
Yep that's how I learned. Eventually we got to neighborhoods and after nearly taking out a few mailboxes. Dad said it was time to go back to the empty parking lot at the elementary school down the street.
- Jan 6, 2015
- 14,216
- 26,601
What?!?!?!?!! I knew up north there are a lot of private instruction services you can pay for, but I had no idea the school systems have dropped it. That sucks.
This. And then afterward, more of this. My daughter is 10, but I'm already thinking of this situation and where we can go to do it. The kicker is that because of my wife, we only own automatics, and I am dead set on having my kids learn stick. I wouldn't make them own the car and drive a stick in our Pennsylvania winters, but I want them to be able to operate a stick shift. May have to find some old beater for teaching them....or, maybe I can rent a stick shift for a weekend here and there?
daytonacane
RIP
- Jun 2, 2015
- 907
- 1,851
Find a big cemetery that have roads throughout. That's where we taught our sons to drive.
- Jun 11, 2014
- 8,013
- 4,832
Founding Member
I went with my grandson to buy a used car and he fell in love with black Mazda 3 5 speed. We went to take it for a test spin . Well the dealer was located on Beach Blvd in Jacksonville and it was nearly rush hour. Well, I got in the passenger seat and he got in to drive. He put the key in the ignition and looked at the gear shift stick, sat there for a minute and then slowly looked at me. Slow grandpa then realizing the boy only knew how to drive an automatic. Well we had a little talk about driving an manual transmission in city traffic. He still wanted the car after that talk so we switched seats and I drove to a residential area and taught him how to drive a stick shift, I laugh every time I think about the look on his face when he looked down and saw this.
- Oct 16, 2014
- 11,846
- 168
Agree and already been doing this. Been to a school parking lot a few times then in a bigger community college parking lot. Then when on vacation in Minnesota we drove on some lightly traveled roads. Since then we have been doing some neighborhood driving. We are making progress but still seem to have at least one heart stopping moment per session.
She is in a private drivers Ed class but we haven't gone to any drive sessions yet.
It's Great
sidewalk alum
- Mar 4, 2016
- 91
- 56
OP should just remind her that running over people in GTA can be fun, but not so much in real life.
Edit: I meant to quote captain sasquatch
Edit: I meant to quote captain sasquatch
- Feb 13, 2016
- 2,681
- 3,332
Wanted to teach my daughter to drive a stick shift using my 1984 Toyota pick-up. (Known as the Gator truck amongst neighborhood kids due to its deep blue color and its orange "Gators" script on the tailgate.) My wife decides she'll give the daughter lessons first. I'm thinking this is a bad idea (that's a story for another time) but I relent and handover the truck keys. The daughter drives a short distance to a nearby horse farm and I expect the wife to return alone in 20 minutes or so.
An hour later I'm on my tractor mowing acreage when it occurs to me she hasn't returned. I drive the tractor to the farm to see what's up. Upon approach I see the truck parked in a field next to a FL state trooper car, my wife and a female trooper conversing. Not good. As I pull into the farm's long driveway I notice a portion of a wooden fence is demolished with splintered planks and a post strewn about the ground. Not good. Then I pull up next to the wife and trooper. I glance at my truck. The front fender and grill has a deep hairlip-like dent in the middle. Not good.
Now my wife is not known for her sense of place and timing when it comes to humor. Her first words to me are, "Honey, this is Trooper Smith. We hit her car." Sh*t. Not good. I didn't have a gun so I decided to run her over with the tractor-mower but thought better of it a moment later.
Longer story shortened, the wife was joking; the daughter was resting in the farmhouse, fine physically but thoroughly embarassed by exploding through the fence on her first road drive in front of her horseriding friends; the wife and I bought lumber and repaired the fence that day; once the mentally scarred daughter unfolded from the fetal position, she refused to ever drive a manual shift again.
An hour later I'm on my tractor mowing acreage when it occurs to me she hasn't returned. I drive the tractor to the farm to see what's up. Upon approach I see the truck parked in a field next to a FL state trooper car, my wife and a female trooper conversing. Not good. As I pull into the farm's long driveway I notice a portion of a wooden fence is demolished with splintered planks and a post strewn about the ground. Not good. Then I pull up next to the wife and trooper. I glance at my truck. The front fender and grill has a deep hairlip-like dent in the middle. Not good.
Now my wife is not known for her sense of place and timing when it comes to humor. Her first words to me are, "Honey, this is Trooper Smith. We hit her car." Sh*t. Not good. I didn't have a gun so I decided to run her over with the tractor-mower but thought better of it a moment later.
Longer story shortened, the wife was joking; the daughter was resting in the farmhouse, fine physically but thoroughly embarassed by exploding through the fence on her first road drive in front of her horseriding friends; the wife and I bought lumber and repaired the fence that day; once the mentally scarred daughter unfolded from the fetal position, she refused to ever drive a manual shift again.
