Financial burden of lots of driving lessons

[sewknit56]

My DC is almost 18 and was really keen to learn to drive but 45 lessons in and she is struggling. She likes her instructor and feels that each week she is getting somewhere but it is a slow process- instructor has said she is very nervous, jumpy and that although a lovely girl she is a long long way off passing her test. DH has decided he will not pay for any more lessons with the current instructor and wants her to try someone else but she suffers from anxiety and she doesn't want to have to go through all the anxiety of trying someone new, a different car etc when she gets on really well with her current instructor. If she didn't like her instructor and felt she wasn't getting anywhere it would be a different story but she really feels she is getting somewhere now.

He says she needs to pay for her own lessons when she can afford it as we don't have a bottomless pit of money and she just needs to start listening as driving is a very very simple skill. No it is not - for some yes but not for others.

I don't have a driving licence so can't go out with her. I made the decision when I was 17 due to anxiety that I didn't want to drive - but she really wants to do it it is just taking a long long time. I worry now that she will never go back to it and although I don't drive it is a life skill that I would be willing to keep paying for as I am sure she will grasp it eventually. We have bought her a car as we thought getting out practicing would help but DH says she is a liability as she hasn't a clue so he won't go in the car with her again until she has passed her test - she gets really really nervous when in the car with him so I don't think it a true reflection of her driving skills

Has anyone's child stopped due to the financial strain and then gone back to it when they had the money to fund it themselves? The trouble is she has lost all confidence now as H just telling her she is a liability and completely rubbish.

She is hoping to get more hours at work after A levels so she can pay and I am thinking to maybe look for a weekend evening job to pay so she can carry on but DH will not use any more of his hard earned cash on paying for lessons.

My dd stopped of her own volition because she wasn't enjoying it. She started again when she was 22 and passed. The second time she had a female instructor and I think that helped.

I suggest:

Giving it a rest until her exams are out of the way.

Switching to automatic lessons straight after A-Level. She clearly finds it harder than most and an automatic car takes 50% of the work away.

Automatic cars are becoming more and more common - all electric cars are automatic - so it’s the way the world is going.

Consider an intensive course.

Encourage her to use as many video resources as possible.

If you have to sell your Auntie’s car to buy her an automatic, so be it. It’s unfortunate, as it sounds like a nice little car, but it’s more important for her to pass and move on with her life.

I’m a driving instructor. People do learn at different rates unfortunately, and nerves make a huge difference as to what people can do. I feel I need some kind of counselling qualification too to do my job!

Google Diane Hall driving nerves, she is brilliant, she’s a driving nerves specialist for learner drivers. My thoughts are that if all pressure is taken off your daughter from your husband, she does some work on her driving anxiety then things would ease somewhat. What’s the feedback from her instructor?

Basically the more pressure she has the worse she will do.

If you can find someone who will be incredibly calm to practice outside lessons with that’ll help, but they need to be super calm and not shout.

One surprise for me when training is just how important your emotional state is regarding to learning driving, help the nerves and the driving will improve.

Sometimes the instructor just isn’t right… I did 20 lessons with an instructor who was really quiet and arsey about any mistakes and hated it. I stopped for a couple of years then started again with one who was completely different, he’d tell me jokes and natter at me and his personality was just much better suited to me and it put me at ease. My 17yo DD has just started lessons, I’ve made it clear we can’t afford them, my mum helps her out a bit but she has some savings from her job that she is using.

Poor DS at 17/18 had over 70 lessons and 3 tests, we were hoping his theory test wouldn't run out, he found that bit quite easy though, fortunately he was working lots of hours at a supermarket so could afford it, it is such a lot of money though, he did find driving difficult and didn't take to it that well.

What about switching to automatic?

My DD passed her manual test first time but moved away and never bought a car as she had no where to park it and used the train for work.

Then when ready to buy a car she felt nervous and on test driving various vehicles she decided to buy an automatic, which she is happy with.

If we are expecting to go electric in the next 30 years (although I can't see it myself) aren't all electric cars automatic anyway?

@BobnLen Wow, that’s a lot of lessons, he was clearly determined. Kudos to your DS for having such persistence. 👍

I'm not a natural driver at all. I struggled through lessons and my test. After passing I switch to Automatic (which my parents had always opposed). It was SO much easier. These days I drive an electric car and it's even easier than my old automatic. If I had children I'd get them on automatic lessons immediately.

Can she actually drive the car, but can't drive on the road? Or is it she simply cannot actually drive a car?

As "driving" and controlling a vehicle are two different things.

If she can actually drive a car, she needs to get out on the road more, much more..

If she actually cannot coordinate herself to drive the car, well, after 45 lessons I think that's a big concern.

Driving a car is easy, driving on roads and coping with everyone else on the road etc is the hard part. You need to find out which it is.

Our niece was struggling with weekly lessons and had around 40 if I remember correctly. My sister booked her for a 10 day intensive driving course and she passed at the end of it. Is this maybe something that would work for your DD?

Automatic possibly ?

There are some really good points and helpful suggestions here. I so think automatic is possibly the way to go but for some reason she does not want to change instructors to an automatic instructor as she really gets on well with her instructor. However we are paying so we have told her - she has to try automatic with a different instructor so she has decided she is going to stop. We cannot afford any more lessons - so she has to stop - I just hope she goes back to it one day but I have a feeling because it is something that she struggles with she will just not bother. She really wants to drive but just wants it to come easy to her and it doesn't.

A question for the driving instructors on here who commented: I spoke to a friend yesterday who had over 300 lessons about 100 as a teen and she was basically written off by 3 different driving instructors, she then tried again 10 years later and had 3 and a half years of lessons she failed her test 7 times. HOWEVER she knows the problem and knew right from the start - she was so nervous and anxious with a passenger in the car that she couldn't perform - the day she passed her test she went on a solo drive for 4 hours and all driving nerves and anxiety were gone. She now drives anywhere and everywhere and absolutely no nerves at all - it was the fear of having someone watching her all the time they made her so nervous. Both her mum who she went out with as a teen and her husband who she went out with later on were critical and very nervous which made the whole experience very long and drawn out for her.

Personally I've found that A) it'll come easier at different points in life and B) sometimes you just need the motivation of needing to drive for something.
For me it was a commute to uni that was impossible by public transport.

RAC says it takes 45 hours of driving lessons as well as 20 hours of private practice. So the main thing holding her back is his unwillingness to take her out to practice. Can you go with them to keep it calm? After as many hours she should be mostly able to drive without instruction and just ask for reassurance. Get your DH to watch DGN driving on YouTube. This instructor does mock tests, and has a lot of dads on to do the mock test along with their teenagers who don't realise how strict the tests are since they did it, and they all fail. It might open his eyes to what your daughter is dealing with compared to how he learnt.

Has she had 45 hours or 45 lessons? Ideally lessons should be at least 1.5 hours long weekly, unless private practise is available between lessons, or it's going to take so much longer.

RAC says it takes 45 hours of driving lessons as well as 20 hours of private practice.

My DD did this in reverse-she had 15 hours of lessons and nearly 65 hours of driving practice, mainly with me as she found me easiest to drive with (as opposed to DH, who was too nervous)!

I suppose everyone is different, she’s been a confident driver for two years now.

That figure is the 'average', which means loads of people have much more!
I also have a sneaking suspicion that the people surveyed massively downplayed the amount of private practice. IME people like to brag about how little they needed to pass the test.

At the end of the day it's really hard to scientifically correlate the amount of practice etc with test results because so much is dependent on test day conditions. No two people sit the exact same test, unlike a written exam. I know some very good drivers who took 2 tries to pass because of small errors of judgement/other twat drivers/unexpected conditions. Other people who were not quite ready, but decided to take the test anyway and somehow passed because they were lucky enough to get an easy route and quiet drive!

Automatic all the way. If you didn't pay much for the car and it's in great condition with low mileage you should be able to sell it for a decent amount, and then use that towards a small auto. It is a game changer.

I took hundreds of lessons, spent thousands. Could not get on with driving at all and would cry and panic. Eventually switched to auto in my thirties and passed. It's amazing, the freedom!! I would honestly stop even bothering with manual and you BOTH try learning in an auto

Yes, @allypally33 , it’s so individual.
Reading this thread, I’m surprised at how many lessons ppl have nowadays. Back in ye olden 1990’s when I learned to drive, I don’t think we did as many, you got your standard 10-lesson package for your birthday and then perhaps a few more? Plus driving practice with terrified parents. 🤣 Perhaps the test is harder now.

Yes the test IS definitely harder now, since there is so much more traffic on the road. Vast majority of competent drivers won't pass it. Lots of mock tests of qualified drivers on YouTube to prove it. It changed about 5 years ago. The pass rate is less than 50%.

It’s so hard for those who go out with anxious and/or angry parents. It does set the learner up to fail sadly, but I do get that parents often will feel anxious. If it were one of my students I’d probably try to have a word with the parents and try and work out a plan where they don’t feel as stressed out (where I do the stretching part and any practice they do is much easier stuff where they’re likely to easily perform well). Also I can maybe try to calm the nerves of parents, who at the end of the day don’t have dual controls, don’t know how to route plan and feel vulnerable. If the parents feel happier practice won’t be as stressful and I won’t have any anxiety to unpick next lesson!

Driving instruction has changed a lot, it’s no longer as simple as getting someone to control a vehicle anymore, we’re also coaching people to become independently thinking safe drivers as well as dealing with rocketing levels of anxiety too.

I don't think your thread title will necessarily attract people who've struggled with driving, given up and come back to it later. I'm one of them.

It took me a while to come back to. When I was a student I had the time for lessons but not the money, then as a new graduate I had the money but not the time. Maybe I was still just too anxious and making excuses. But I got there in the end, all paid for by me second time round. It helped enormously to have lovely husband in my corner, building me up and not criticising.

Your daughter is still very young and it sounds like a huge amount of pressure, with having the car already, the money and your husband being so unhelpful. Maybe she feels a bit paralysed by it. It doesn't mean she can't learn, but it might mean now is not the right time for her.

RAC says it takes 45 hours of driving lessons as well as 20 hours of private practice.

That isn’t a hard and fast rule. Obviously it will vary from person to person. I needed nothing like that level of instruction. From memory, it was about ten lessons. However, my parents got me to drive whenever they went anywhere, including long journeys when going on holiday or to visit relatives in far flung corners of the UK. It was that that really boosted my confidence.

I would also recommend switching to auto. It’s one less thing to worry about and as has already been pointed out, with the push to electrification, gears and clutches are on their way out.

Fully agree with all that.

The OP needs to find out if their DD can "technically" and "physically" drive the car, which is indeed generally the easy part. I.e. start, stop, steer, change gears, brake, etc etc.

As you say, the really difficult bit is driving in traffic, dealing with other vehicles, hazard perception, understand road signs/road markings, etc etc.

To be honest it sounds like she doesn’t want it enough if she won’t even try a lesson in an automatic with a different instructor. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to. In fact lots of times in life! It’s something she will need to get used to.