Driving is a doing thing, so if your family can supervise your driving, and let you have access to a car, by all means do it, and save loads of money. You should be very thankful coz some people don’t have such advantages. But the other side of the coin is, if your supervising driver got the full licence over 10 years ago, chances are, while you will learn some good things from him/her, you may also learn some bad habits from him/her too, coz some current RTA requirements weren’t in their text book back then.
We’ve got a couple of these students, and its quite time consuming to ‘correct’ those driving habits. That is to say, they are paying more to correct, than the students learning from new.
To save money is always good, as long as you don’t have to pay more back at the end.
Tips for getting the perfect balance between saving money and paying professional lessons:
- Let the new learner to learn the first few lessons from a professional instructor, to lay a great foundation of driving; this also reduce the risk of the new learner to slam on the accelerator and turn the steering wheel to full, which could be very dangerous and costly
- Do 1-2 lessons after about 6 months to refresh
- Do a couple of pre-test lessons before the test
- Rest of time, feel free to do heaps of driving with family based on what you learn from the instructor
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For your info, some common bad habits from family trained learners:
- Frequently not signalling, and if signaled, less than required length
- Frequently not checking mirrors and blindsopts
- Letting go of steering wheel while driving
- Too close to the front vehicle while driving or stopping
- Not checking red light runners at traffic lights
- Merging into traffic or changing lane without legal and safe gaps
- Road positioning error while driving or turning
- Lack of responses to hazards