School Holidays
With school holidays about to start I thought it time to contact my valued clients with a holiday message.
Firstly, enjoy your family time and if travelling drive safely and remember “stop revive survive”. It is so easy to get caught up in the excitement of a road trip and forget to take regular breaks and change drivers.
School holidays can be a great time to get your kids driving at higher speeds on highways and freeways, gaining invaluable experience, not to mention building up those hours!
Some might argue that this is a dangerous time to have learner drivers on the road, and while highway driving can always have some inherent dangers, this is the case at any time of the year.
Obviously, some precautions need to be taken. Such as:
- Not tow a trailer
- Consider not allowing your learner to drive the family 4WD, fully laden and full of the family.Common sense must be used here
- Make sure the learner driver has the appropriate level of skills to drive safely to the conditions
- Make sure that two hours is the maximum length of time they drive without a break
You might ask, “why would I let him/her drive, they can only do 90 Kilometres per how, we are in a hurry and need to get there”
If they drive for an hour at 90, in a 110-kilometre zone the absolute most you would lose would lose per hour is a distance of 20 kilometres. Not much considering the benefits of what they can gain from the experience. Some of these benefits could be:
- Develop skills at higher speeds
- Manage vehicles overtaking them at speed (many kids get nervous of this)
- Where appropriate practice lane changes and merging
- Develop road fitness by driving for longer periods of time
- If appropriate teach the proper use of cruise control.Include all the functions of cruise control, and explain when they should and should not use cruise control. Lie in heavy traffic or heavy rain. People of say to me that it is dangerous to teach this, but I disagree. As soon as our kids start driving Solo and in cars with this feature, the first thing they will do is experiment with it.
- I could go on and on about the benefits of giving your kids a varied range of experiences, but it would be a short novel
So, my holiday message is to pack the car, pack the family, pack your teenagers Log Book, and enjoy a well-deserved break your family.
And don’t forget the L Plates.
Cheers
Jamie Davis
JD Driver Training
Ph: 0414491185
www.jddrivertraining.com.au