Photo: How to quickly learn to drive a car (Getty Images) Author: Konstantin Shirokun
Before the first trips behind the wheel, you need to figure out how it is done theoretically, in order to protect the driving school student from his worst enemy – the psychological barrier. Journalists from RBC-Ukraine Auto tell how to learn to drive a car correctly.
Read about the most important rules for approaching auto training in the RBC-Ukraine article.
An aspiring driver will not become a driver unless he has mastered two components of driver's skills: first, he must be able to control a car as a technical device, and second, he must learn to interact with other road users. Which, of course, prevent each of us from moving along our routes.
Driving a car
Each driving school has approved teaching methods, but we will say that it is worth starting with driving a car – it must be brought to automatism. After all, a driver who is distracted every time with his eyes and hands by manipulations, say, on changing gears, is unlikely to be able to correctly understand the situation at an unregulated intersection. If training with a school instructor is not enough for you, find a car and a free field road, and independently practice on it in several exercises.
Moving off . This point applies to both manual and automatic cars. Learn to listen to the car's mechanisms and catch the moment when the clutch discs close and the car is about to start moving. At the same time, the engine may lose speed on manual transmissions, so it is important not to let it stall when adding speed. But too much gas is also bad – both on manual and automatic transmissions. Move many times in a row until you can do everything automatically.
Braking and stopping. This task is simpler, but there are also important nuances, and they concern in particular the actions after stopping. In particular, on a manual transmission, you can accidentally turn off the engine by inappropriately dropping the clutch pedal, and on an automatic, incorrect actions will lead to unauthorized slow movement of the car forward. Practice stopping the car at a specific point – this is important and you will also need to learn this.
Turns. The difficulty here is to coordinate the steering wheel rotation and the speed of the car. The key condition is that you cannot roll in the turn, the car must go in one of the lower gears. It will be easier to practice this maneuver if you find a safe field road with turns of different radii and steepness. Or build yourself a winding route on a free site, using signal cones.
Interacting with other drivers
Here, a novice driver will face more difficulties, because the range of situations on the road is much wider than when manipulating controls. First of all, you need to study the Road Traffic Regulations – without this, there is no point in talking about driving on public roads.
In fact, driving through any intersection is a successful solution to two problems. First of all, you should identify all the vehicles whose trajectories will intersect with yours, and secondly, determine the order of their passage, taking into account, of course, yourself. It is important that all other drivers see you and you understand that they are planning the same order of passage as you.
You can only gain confidence in difficult situations at intersections after driving in real languages. To make it less scary, start with intersections you are familiar with, and at times when there is little traffic. It is very advisable to have an experienced driver in the car with you, who will back you up – in particular, confirming your decisions regarding the priority of traffic.
In brief
When you are about to get your license, you should realize one thing: no matter how fashionable your driving school is, in order to learn how to drive safely, you will have to do a lot yourself. First, understand the Traffic Regulations, second, learn how to handle the steering wheel and pedals, and third, learn how to quickly solve logical problems while driving through various types of junctions. It is not easy, but it is absolutely accessible, although you will have to work a little.
Materials from Autocentre and Motor were used in preparing this article .
Let us recall that RBC-Ukraine recently reported why pedestrians are not always right.