Teaching Your Teen To Drive: Objective # 3 - Taking Turns

"Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; and love by love." ~ Thomas S. Szasz

How does a parent go about teaching a brand new, inexperienced driver how to make proper turns?

Here are the step by step instructions:

#1 - Get behind the wheel to show and explain the proper steps for turning corners. Tell your student when and where to start turning and how to straighten the front wheels for coming out of a turn. Have the kid watch your hands as well as the road.

For a left turn you might use the following script while you demonstrate:

Check your rear view mirror and signal your turn at least 100 feet (about two houses) before the intersection.

Slow down as you approach the intersection and position your car next to the center line as you get closer to the corner.

Look left for cross traffic, look right for cross traffic, look across the intersection for oncoming traffic, and look to your left a second time.

When it is safe to do so - drive to the point where your steering wheel is even with the left corner curb (that straight line of concrete to our left), look out the drivers side window, and begin steering into the lane just to the right of the yellow (center) line.

You should move your eyes towards the right (out the front windshield) as the car progresses into the turn.

Just before the front of the car is perfectly straight begin begin steering back to the right until the car is moving forward in a straight line.

By the way, you're going to have to take very slow turns if you're going to coordinate the words with the actions during the demonstration.

#2 - Find a good place to turn the car over to your new driver. If you can find an empty parking lot, mark out a 200' by 200' rectangle and mark the corners with orange safety cones (or sand filled bottles). If you can't find a parking lot, find a quiet neighborhood with straight streets and 90 degree intersections.

#3 - Review the lessons from Starting and Stopping. Afterwards have the student demonstrate the hand-over-hand technique while the selector lever is in park and engine idles. Then have the student start making left turns very slowly. You can coach by telling him where to start steering, when to hold the steering wheel in place, and when to start straightening. You should be ready to assist his steering with your left hand.

#4 - After making the first few turns begin emphasizing proper eye habits. Learning to visualize the proper turn path and "looking into and through the turn" are essential to making smooth and precise turns.

#5 - Practice right turns in the same manner. Remember to keep things slow.

#6 - If you've been working in a parking lot up to this point, move the lesson out into the streets. It's time to start practicing proper positioning and signalling in a quiet, low traffic area. Your job just became more complicated because now you have to watch the traffic in addition to coaching. Take an aspirin or two.

#7 - You can begin to gradually speed up the maneuvers. The timing of the steering and braking is closely tied to the speed of the car. The faster your student drives the more difficult the turns become.

#8 - Your teen should learn that the time to begin the straightening process is when the front wheels, not the hood, start to point down the street being turned into.

#9 - Progress to areas where you can take a variety of turns. Your teen should learn how to turn from the halt, while moving, when positioned on a hill top, when positioned at the base of a hill, at corners with both sharp and rounded curbs, and from narrow streets to wide streets.

Have fun. And remember this takes time.

See also:

Help! My Teens Are Taking Killer Turns!! Part I

Help! My Teens Are Taking Killer Turns!! Part II

Another Way To Monitor Your Teen Driver

"Never mistake knowledge for wisdom" ~ Sandra Carey

Once your teen has that license it's important to keep tabs on her driving. I mentioned how one father remedied his children's poor driving behavior. James Winfield put his foot down, established rules and guidelines, and monitored his teens' driving both in person and with GPS. He got some good results.

I also noted that Drivecam looked like a good way to keep an eye on your new drivers , but at present that system is available only in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Indiana.

But no fears - for those of us who live outside of those three states there is Tell-My-Mom.com. Here we have a program similar to the trucking industry's "How's My Driving" program.

Tell-My Mom.com was founded by Jay S. Van Zeeland an Emergency Medical Technician with a rescue service in Wisconsin. He had seen first hand many teen accidents and was looking for a way to help reduce these collisions. Studying the program for the trucking industry, he discovered that they had achieved over 20% reductions in accidents and ticketing. The trucking companies found that in most instances, drivers were making proactive changes in their driving, because they did not want to be called to the boss' office to justify their actions. Teens react in much the same fashion.

By placing the How's My Driving sticker on your car, other drivers now have an easy way to provide feedback about your teen's driving. When a report is received, you are contacted via mail or e-mail with information regarding your teen's driving behavior.

Now you can use the entire driving population as your eyes and ears. Check out Mr. Van Zeelands program. You just might save your child's life.

Teaching Your Teen To Drive: Objective #2 - Starting and Stopping

"Tell me and I'll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I'll understand." ~ Chinese Proverb

Once you and your young driver have worked out a pre-driving routine, it's time to get the car moving. Right? Well, not quite. There are still a few key points you'll want to cover before you get rolling.

You should review some of the things he has learned in the classroom - for instance, the fact that one can start the car only if the gear shift selector lever is set on Park (P) or Neutral (N). The ability to start the car in Neutral comes in pretty handy should it ever stall in traffic.

You'll want to review all the warning lights, switches, knobs, and gauges on the dashboard. The windshield wiper switch, the headlight switch, and emergency flashers/warning lights should get special attention. When you need these three, you REALLY need them.

Before he ever inserts key into the ignition switch, remind him to let it go once he hears the sound of the engine. Otherwise you get the buzz-saw sound and your starter motor is one step closer to the junk yard.

Now we're ready to get moving.

Before letting your teen move the car for the first time take it to an off-street area, such as an empty or sparsely populated parking lot. If you can't find one that fits the bill, a straight stretch of level street (about 500 feet) in a quiet neighborhood will suffice.

Have your teen start the engine and shut it off a couple times before moving the car.

Have him drive in a straight line without using the accelerator. I've met so many kids that think the car can't move without help from the accelerator. I suppose old habits developed on the little "Bob the Builder" Jeep die hard. This is where he should learn that he doesn't have to hit the gas to obtain motion.

After he comes to this new understanding, you can have him cross the lot again (or drive down another straight stretch) with the gas pedal slightly depressed, going maybe 10-15 mph, so he can judge the relationship between pedal pressure and acceleration. Have him keep this up while changing the accelerator pressure until he's slowing down and speeding up smoothly.

Then you can teach him to control his speed with the brake. He can practice going forward and backward using only the brake pedal. Have him increase the speed incrementally and then work on slowing down from the higher speeds.

This is where emphasizing keeping that right heel on the floor will pay off. He has to pivot from the accelerator to the brake to do this properly.

You both might be a little nervous at the start of this session. Just stay calm and keep on practicing. Stop when either one of you begins to tire or loose patience.

Supervise Your Licensed Teen With High-Tech and Common Sense

"Trust, but verify" ~ Damon Runyon

James Winfield, President and CEO of DriveHomeSafe.com, discovered he had a problem with his children soon after they earned their driver's licenses:

"Within weeks after my new teen drivers were driving solo, I realized they knew enough about driving to be a hazard to themselves (and others)...

Technically, they knew how to drive an automobile. ( I made sure of that).On the surface, they appeared to be able drivers. They could drive an automobile as well at night as they could in daylight. Our new teen drivers could do everything fundamentally necessary or legal to drive an automobile.

What they didn't have and desperately needed was experience and good judgment, which time and maturity could only provide...They get into situations, and do things operating an automobile outside their range of skill and experience to handle...Speeding, and driving recklessly are two misjudgments new drivers do."

Although I do not agree that reckless driving is merely a matter of "judgement", I heartily approve of the steps he took to correct the problem. This is what he did:


1. Negotiated a Teen Driving Contract: The Winfield Family established a basis of mutual agreement and understanding.


2. Eliminated distractions that got in the way of solving the problem of speeding by temporarily stripping the car of its stereo system.


3. Confronted peer pressure issues and circumstances.


4. Installed an easy-to-use Electronic Monitoring Unit to know if the automobile is speeding or driven recklessly.


5. Established geographic boundaries which expanded as the teens' experience grew.


6. Drove in separate automobiles when going to the same destination - teen drivers in one, adults in the other. His kids liked this arrangement. It fed into their need for independence. However, Winfield and his wife did it to gauge how their teen drivers really drove when they didn't have the parents in the same automobile with them.


7. Refused to take Speeding Tickets or Moving Violations lightly.


8. Put responsibility on their teen drivers to financially pay the consequences of their poor driving behavior. Winfield's kids paid for their automobile insurance. The parents paid the monthly car payments. When the teens messed up by driving in ways that caused their insurance rates to increase, they felt it financially. When their insurance premium payment rate decreased due to responsible driving, they benefited.

Winfield reports that this combination of tactics was highly successful and that it forced his teenagers to drive correctly.

Also Winfield is really sold on electronic monitoring devices. There is one system that made the news recently which I find quite interesting. It's called DriveCam.

DriveCam's exception-based video event recorder is mounted on the windshield behind the rear-view mirror and captures sights and sounds inside and outside the vehicle. G-forces (e.g. hard braking, swerving, collision, etc.) cause the recorder to save the 10 seconds immediately before and after the triggered event. Saved events are downloaded, analyzed and assigned a risk score to coach drivers, improve driving behavior and figure out who is to blame in collisions.

The system reminds me of fighter plane gun-cameras. Check out the video clips at the above link. The diver in this clip is a real prize!

I think Mr. Winfield is on to something. I believe his tactics when taken together get the job done. The mission being to keep your teen driver alive.

Here's a final word from James Winfield:

"If it bothers you that your teen driver may cry invasion of privacy, get over it and don't let it stop you. Preventing an automobile accident is what parenting is about. Bottom line, this is not a trust issue, it's about protecting your teen driver from misjudgments teens too often make when driving."

Well said, sir! Well done, sir!