How Long Does It Take You to Learn How to Drive?

Having the ability to drive is indispensable, because it plays a vital role in our lives, and it will help us traveling between places quickly. It is necessary that drivers pass the driving test in order to drive safely and legally. However, many of us might find it complicated to meet the driving criteria. This article will provide you with a lot of useful information, including three main points:

• How to Choose a Driving Instructor
• How long it really takes you to learn
• How to get a driver’s license

The first section is selected to discuss here since before asking how long it takes to learn driving, you should choose the most appropriate driving instructor. The second section will present the most important part of this article. The third and final section, though it is not as important as two former sections, will be selected to discuss here because it illustrates one of the frequently-ask-questions that a driving learner will ask.

How to Choose a Driving Instructor?

In fact, there are different manners to learn how to drive. For example, you could have your friend or family member teach you, or you could attend professional lessons and trainings offered by various organizations. The second choice seems to be more practical, as everyone has their personal jobs to do. Thus, selecting an appropriate instructor is particularly important. They help you improve your multitasking skills in different situations on the road, so quality and professionality of your driving instructor will significantly influence on your result. You could keep in mind the following criteria in mind when picking your instructor:

• Qualifications

Driving trainers must be professionally educated, having either an approved driving instructor (ADI) or a trainee driving instructor.

• Reputation

You should ask your family or friends about their instructors so as to ensure that an instructor is suitable to you.

• Reliability

Choosing a satisfactory instructor is vital, as the cost of inviting them is not cheap at all. Besides, a wrong instructor will hinder your progress and end up costing more money. In addition, if your instructor usually shows up late, cancels at short notice or double books you with another student, you had better think about changing instructors.

•  Do you feel comfortable while studying with them?

While learning how to drive, it is essential that you feel confident, safe and supported. Therefore, if after some lessons, you feel uncomfortable with your trainer, then it is about time for you to change to another one.

How long does it really take you to learn?

The answer is: It depends! On the average, it is estimated by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) that it takes most people 45 hours of lessons to learn how to drive, plus 22 hours of practicing, on the average. However, driving, which is similar to other skills in some ways, requires us to spend time on learning and practicing. That means every individual will require different amount of hours to be proficiency in controlling a vehicle. After choosing the most appropriate driving instructor for yourself, you should take note that there are 5 key factors influencing how quickly you learn how to drive. All of these factors will be discussed in details below.

• How many lessons do you have a week

If you can schedule your time effectively, you should have more than a lesson per week since it is a better investment. As a beginner, too much time between driving lessons means you have to re-learn everything over and over. Try at least 2 driving lessons a week for the first month. After that, once you are accustomed to multi-tasking on your vehicle, you can reduce the number of lessons if you want to. From my own experience, having only 1 lesson a week for the whole time really slowed me down, especially when I was preparing for my driving test.

• How much private practice you get

After a couple of weeks learning how to drive and taking a driving theory test, it would be a reasonable period to ask your instructor about doing some private practice with your friend, sibling or parent. There are several things you need to arrange and get them ready first (such as learner driver insurance, suitable supervising driver etc), but it is worth to do, both in terms of time and value. Getting enough private practice means that you have higher ability to succeed in your driving test. It also means that you can control different cars in different weather conditions. It is obvious that the more you practice, the sooner you achieve your goal.

• How many different road situations you experience

Driving your vehicle in various conditions of weather and roads will help you considerably enhancing your skills, which in turn means that you will be able to handle lots of situations in reality. Furthermore, you will be likely to encounter road works, summer speeders, school letting out, tractors hauling harvesting machinery and so on, which are the things you will have to deal with when you have passed your driving test.

• How much you practice hazard perception

The driving test is primarily to evaluate how well you can cope with hazards. The main factor is safety. This means that your hazard perception has to be spot on. Checking mirrors and reacting to the surrounding is one way to keep yourself and other people safe.

• How good your Highway Code knowledge is

In the driving theory test, you will be asked a lot of questions about the rules of the road, which may be familiar yet very confusing in the actual test. For instance, you could be asked about the meaning of the sign or who react correctly in a certain context, and so on. Something like stopping on hatchings, using bus lane at the wrong time or not reacting to pedestrians waiting at a zebra crossing can cost you. In this case, regularly using your theory test applications on your smartphone, books or other materials is a worthwhile solution. You should keep revising the questions and discuss them with your instructor or anyone it may concern. As a matter of fact, knowing how to drive is not enough, as you must have a driving license to avoid being punished while being in traffic. Therefore, the next (and also the final) section of this article will discuss about the way to get a driving license.

How can you get a driving license?

In the United States of America, driver’s licenses are issued by each individual state and the federal district rather than by the federal government because of the concept of federalism. You are usually required to obtain a license from their state of residence and all states recognize each other’s licenses for temporary visitors subject to normal age requirements. Generally, in order to get a license, you have to take two tests, including the driving theory test and the road test. Remember that you should pass both of them in order to have the driving license. If you utilize all tips discussed above, it will significantly reduce the amount of hours that it requires you to get a driving license.

Conclusion

In summary, we know that the ability to drive is crucial, as it helps us to move between places conveniently and quickly. Additionally, learning how to drive requires us to spend time and money on developing knowledge of both traffic laws and driving skills. You should learn it enthusiastically and carefully in a bid to have safe trips in the future.