If you’re old enough to get a license to drive, you’ve probably already done some preliminary research. Sure, you’ve spent years riding in a car with your parents, so you’re bound to have picked some of the obvious stuff by osmosis, like “red light means stop, green light means go, stop sign means you’re supposed to come to a complete stop, but if you’re like my dad, you actually just sloooowly cruise on by and then keep going.” You might have even done some reading up online or picked up the driver’s handbook for your state with all the rules and regulations that you’re going to need for when you take a written test.
Find A High-Quality Online Driving School Here
But then there’s the driving school itself. If you want to drive well, you should get a solid education, and the way to do that is to go to the right school. Going to a driving school helps you learn the basics of road safety, vehicle operation, and provides a solid training foundation to make you an informed and safe driver. Finding a good driving school ensures that you are equipped with a positive driving attitude and an overall safe driving culture.
Fortunately, just by virtue of the fact that you’re sitting here, reading this, you’ve decided to be a lot more efficient, and rather than track down every online driver’s ed course or online traffic school, you came to the experts who have already done all the evaluation. That’s a smart first move, and it’s going to save you a lot of time, money and get you much better results. We’ll help you find the right school that won’t rush your learning process and will make sure that you have thorough behind-the-wheel training. With this, you’ll come out as a confident and responsible driver.
But now that you’re ready to go to driving school, what are you actually going to learn? Sure, you’ll learn to drive, but what does that mean? Learning to drive in this case is broken down into three separate areas. Here’s the general scope of what’s in store for you when you start learning.
Theory
This is where something like an online driving course can be the biggest help. There’s no getting around it; one significant component of learning to drive is traffic law and driving theory, and a lot of this is just straight memorization. The same tactics and methods, such as mnemonic triggers, flashcards, or any other learning strategies you have for absorbing information and retaining it, will serve you well here.
The biggest difference is duration. For some more mercenary students, studying for exams means expending just enough effort to retain the information long enough to call it up for an exam. Then, once the test is over, the information is promptly forgotten and never used again. Traffic law isn’t like that. The most obvious example is the speed limit. If, for some reason, you cannot remember what the top speed limit is in certain situations, pleading ignorance to a police officer is not going to work. Not recognizing a traffic law doesn’t excuse you from being fined and charged for violations, so you will have to remember this stuff and keep it in mind for the rest of your driving life.
Knowing traffic law and driving theories help you organize and effectively retain the information you need to become a better driver. Driving is a lifetime skill, and understanding the justification and rationale of why you need to implement road safety helps ensure that you put those learning into practice.
Judgment
Another aspect, which is easily addressed by picking an excellent online defensive driving course is situational awareness and appropriate reactions. Traffic laws and memorization are very easy in one sense. They’re rules, they are straightforward, and they apply all the time. You’ll always encounter red lights, and they’ll always mean coming to a complete stop.
But then there are situations like overtaking other drivers on the freeway or judging how much distance you need to keep between yourself and the car in front of you in order to still have the clearance to safely brake and not get into a collision. There will be instances where, through no fault of your own, some event or potential accident or risk may be about to occur, and you will need to react to this to prevent the situation from getting worse.
In cases like this, you will need to cultivate both a sense of knowledge and a sense of judgment about evaluating a situation and deciding how to react.
Better judgment increases confidence when driving. Being confident behind the wheel is a skill every driver must possess. Driving schools provide the necessary training that allows you to make the correct split-second driving decisions. Poor judgment leads to poor driving confidence. Hesitating to make a quick stop or freezing up in an intense situation while driving can lead to fatal accidents.
Besides traffic and road judgment, you’ll also learn how to identify and correctly address car problems confidently. Basic knowledge like how often you should change oil or knowing if your engine has issues can be advantageous.
This combination of getting proper education on defensive driving techniques and then knowing when is the appropriate time to put those techniques into practice leads to the final component.
Driving Experience
This is one part that no theory can help you with. You need to get some actual, practical experience on the road, behind the wheel, getting a feel for driving. There’s still no substitute for real driving time, and it is an essential part of your driving education. No classroom lecture or online video can prepare you for what it really feels like when you sense a car’s control slipping away from you due to icy road conditions, or how to react when driving off-road and you can feel the SUV bouncing around under you as you negotiate the environment with four or all-wheel drive.
Driving fundamentals are best learned when you are operating the vehicle. A real driving experience is critical in the development of safe driving skills, especially for new drivers. Driving mistakes you make can be rectified and provides you with real-life experience crucial in learning how to drive safely once you are already on the road. Instead of beating yourself up during actual driving lessons, you can take it as a learning experience to make sure you won’t make the same mistakes once you’re legally driving.
Theory is essential, but understanding how driving feels and responding to that is crucial. And that’s something that you can only get on your own, in a car.