How Much Time Will I Need?

If there’s one question I seem to always get, it’s this: “How much time will this take (to get me/my son/my daughter through to the license test?”

There is, unfortunately, no easy answer for this.  The truth is, we are all unique snowflakes.  Each of us learns differently.  Each of us has skills and knowledge areas we seem to pick up easily, and each of us has areas where we struggle.  While there are different learning styles, there are no two people who learn exactly alike.

This makes estimating my involvement in any student’s learning a difficult thing.

Driving skills are built in layers.  Let’s think about this within the construct of Pennsylvania’s 65-hour practice mandate (novice drivers under the age of 18 must log a minimum of 65 hours of practice time with a supervising adult driver before being allowed to test for their license).  This is a bare minimum of wheel time, and it’s a good milestone to hit for all novice drivers, regardless of the age cutoff the law inserts.  If we wanted to break it down, the first twenty hours would be spent on the basics of vehicle handling – speed and lane management, turns and curves, and basic intersection negotiation.  The next twenty hours would be spent in more complex environments – commercial zones, lane changes, lane merges, etc.  The final 25 hours would be spent on building situational awareness, hazard recognition, crash avoidance, emergency protocols and attentional control.

Some students are managing their speed and lane position well from the first session.  Others need multiple sessions just to learn proper steering techniques.  There is no magical formula that says if your student is 19 and has a job, he/she will need 3 or 4 sessions and will be test-ready in six weeks.  I can’t promise anything like that – to do so would be unprofessional and unethical, not to mention untrue.  If you’ve encountered any driving instructor who is promising such a timetable, run away – they’re selling you something other than safe driving ability.

What I can give you is detailed written feedback following each session, focusing on targeting the student’s strengths and weaknesses.  I can give you plenty of discussion time to calm your fears and address your concerns.  I can give you ideas for “homework” drives you can do together at home, between sessions with me, to maximize the student’s learning and skill-building.  And I can give you relative peace of mind that, when we’re all done, you’ll have a solid, safe, dependable driver out there who knows how to protect herself and avoid crashes and tickets, an independent driver with all the knowledge and skills to drive safely for a lifetime – which makes your investment worth ten times what it took to get there.

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