Driving instructors meet us when we are most nervous and scared behind the wheel. Their job is to help new and nervous drivers stay calm and alert, and while students will change over time, the mistakes instructors often make will not.
“After doing this job for six months, you start to know what students are going to do before they even do it,” said Mike Thomas, a driving instructor for 27 years and co-founder of AllGood Driving School in Northern California.
HuffPost asked veteran instructors what the most common mistakes they see year after year are and how to break those bad habits. Here’s what they had to say:
1. They don’t pay attention in traffic.
New drivers do not analyze their surroundings enough to detect dangers.
“Driving a car physically isn’t that difficult. Driving a car safely is all about mental work,” said Steve Frank, co-owner of Pinellas Driving School in Florida and a driving instructor for nearly seven years. “It’s all about thinking, planning and anticipating.”
Thomas gave the example of a distracted driver simply driving forward despite having a green light while looking ahead, which would result in a point deduction on a driving test.
Instead, “just before you enter the intersection, you’re supposed to look in all directions. So I was quickly looking to my left, looking to my right and also checking for pedestrians,” Thomas said.
This lack of focus is one of the most dangerous mistakes that all drivers must unlearn. Even experienced drivers can make the mistake of becoming distracted or looking down at their phones. Distracted driving is dangerous and resulted in the deaths of 3,308 people in 2022, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“Some people get behind the wheel and don’t understand the magnitude of concentration that driving requires,” said Ken Pupo, a 21-year driving instructor at the Philadelphia Professional Driving School. “Their mind is in Hawaii, and that’s not possible when driving. There’s no downtime.”
2. They don’t look over their shoulder before changing lanes.
Thomas said failing to look over your shoulder before changing lanes “is one of the most common things that results in an automatic failure on the test” in California.
And unlike other mistakes that are unlearned with practice, this is one that adults get worse at, “because they just start taking it for granted, they start thinking they’re good at using their mirrors or that their car does the work for them,” Thomas added.
“Sensors are great, but we try to teach kids that they are assistants, not substitutes,” Frank said. “And so even if you have a car with a blind spot sensor, you should turn your head and check it.”
Ideally, you want to look over your shoulder diagonally out the back window and toward the “20-foot spot right next to the trunk” where your mirrors can’t see, Thomas said, noting that he often takes students outside a car so they can understand how big the spot is.
3. They pass the stop signs.
“The first thing we need to do is correct all the bad things that parents have taught their children,” Frank said. And one of those mistakes is running stop signs.
The proper way to stop is at the stop sign or bar painted on the road and “no further than it,” Frank said, adding, “And then if you can’t see, you slowly move your car forward until you can determine whether it’s safe to proceed or not.”
4. They stick closely to the vehicle in front.
Driving too close to or aggressively tailgating another vehicle is not only rude, it can be dangerous and lead to a collision if the vehicle in front stops suddenly. Speeding is the cause of nearly one-third of all road deaths, according to the NHTSA.
Driving too close to another vehicle is a bad habit that drivers of all experience levels have.
“Some people are just chronic ‘pawns.’ They’re aggressive, rude and mean,” Thomas said. “But I think everyone at some point has done it or has been a victim of it, too.”
To avoid being tailgated, “you need to keep a three-second safety distance” between you and the vehicle in front of you, Thomas said. In other words, if the vehicle in front of you passes an object or line on the road, you need to be able to count to three seconds before passing it, too.
If the vehicle behind you remains the same, the safest thing to do is to stop or change lanes until the vehicle behind you passes, Thomas said. But if that’s not an option, slow down and increase the distance between you and the vehicle ahead.
“The more space you have in front of you, the less likely you are to brake suddenly, which means the less likely you are to get hit by the tailgater,” he said.
5. They signal too late or too early.
Frank said another common mistake new drivers make is inadequate signaling.
“They turn on the signal at the corner where they plan to turn or they don’t turn it on at all,” he said. “Once in a while, you get a kid who knows they should turn on the signal early and can drive three-quarters of a block with the signal on; if it’s too early, you have to balance that out.”
In Florida, Frank explained, you must signal at least 100 feet before you turn: “Don’t make (other drivers) guess where you’re actually going to turn.”
That said, incorrect signaling happens to drivers of all experiences.
“People get lazy and don’t signal, or they think that if they do, someone will steal their spot,” Thomas said.
Take parallel parking as a common example. Ideally, you’ll want to signal ahead and apply your brakes so that cars behind you don’t block you from entering the spot, Thomas said.
6. They don’t know where to look.
Too often, new drivers only look at the hood of the car instead of focusing on what’s coming next.
“When they start out, they resist the idea of looking ahead, up, because they think they’re going to get lost,” Pupo said. More experienced drivers can also make the mistake of looking down at the ground in front of them instead of ahead, he added.
If there is a car in front of you, “look over the roof of the car in front of you,” Pupo suggested as a better way to look while driving. “And that will give you a better view than looking at the license plate or the ground.”
Part of being a better driver is seeing the bigger picture, so you can make better decisions while driving.
“One of the things I’ve told people over the years is, ‘There’s no car and there’s no ground. There’s just you, the steering wheel and where you want to be,’” Pupo said.
How to help drivers improve
Strong, defensive drivers aren’t born that way, but rather develop through practice and experience in different environments. Even after passing your driving test, the work isn’t over. Every time you drive, you need to stay alert. Here’s how to give your new driver or a nervous driver the right advice, as well as how to find a good driving instructor:
If you are an adult tipping a student driver…
Be specific with your language.
Thomas said he will tell students to “gas more” or “brake more” when he wants them to speed up or slow down.
He also said that parents teaching their children to drive “should say ‘brake,’ not ‘slow down,’ because the student might mistake that for simply taking their foot off the accelerator instead of actually braking.”
Talk about how you drive while you’re doing it.
With the rise of distracting phones, Thomas said fewer students are paying attention to how others are driving, making learning to drive more difficult.
Thomas said adults of future drivers should narrate how they drive, so young students have useful exposure to what common maneuvers should feel like.
He gave the example of a parent who would say, “Well, right now I’m going to take my foot off the accelerator and I’m going to start braking. Do you feel that?” So the student starts to realize that now is when they start braking.
If you are looking for a good driving instructor…
Use references.
You can use Google or Yelp as a starting point, but Thomas said it’s “really important” to use referrals from other people you trust because that information is more objective than the driving school’s own.
Ask questions about how they learn and teach.
“Is the class 100% private?” This is one of the questions you should ask, as Thomas suggested, because some schools have one student drive another student home so that travel time is not wasted between students.
It is also a good idea to ask what vehicles the instructors drive and what type of insurance they have. Look for schools with higher insurance limits in case of an accident.
Frank said you should ask how instructors are trained, with questions like, “Is the driver certified by the state?” To become a certified instructor in Florida, for example, an applicant must complete a 32-hour training program and take a refresher course every five years.
Becoming a good driver will take time, but it will take even longer if you don’t have a trained instructor. Take that extra hour to find a good teacher, and if you’re that informal teacher, give the new driver in your life some much-needed hands-on experience.
