Your learner driver has his or her provisional licence. Now the
real challenge begins. Stay involved and help them through the P
plate learning curve.
Start afresh with new goals
The challenge is to help your learner
driver navigate the next six months of P plate driving without
crashing and help them build a foundation for lifelong safe
driving. So your job hasn't quite finished.
In some ways, the hard part of your job has just begun because
your P plate driver might be thinking, "that's it for learning".
Nothing could be further from reality.
Get a good sense of the risks
Much of the crash risk your learner driver now faces is
influenced by how prepared they are for solo driving. If
you haven't already, you can get a sense of what good preparation
is by going to the page Had L's a While and then
Nearly at P's.
Getting this right is important because new P plate drivers tend
to misjudge their competence.
Judge your P plater's ability objectively
It is common for newly licensed drivers to think they are more
safe and skilful than their peers, which may or may not be true.
But for many, what they think they can do far exceeds what they can
actually do.
There are many complex reasons why new drivers think this way.
But if these thoughts are left unquestioned the driver is more
likely to put themselves in situations they cannot manage.
You can influence the way a young driver judges their ability by
changing what they judge themselves against.
It's too late at this stage for a free keys2drive
lesson but you can still ask a keys2drive accredited
driving instructor in your area for help. Book a lesson and ask the
driving instructor to check your learner driver's readiness for
safe P plate driving.
Keep supervising and keep your P plater learning
Once you and your learner driver have a good
sense of the risks, you will have a good idea of what to work
on.
Keep up the driving sessions.
This is a powerful time for a learner driver to learn. They
are able to take ideas that they recieve from driving together and
apply them when they drive alone. And vice versa - they can bring
questions and experiences from driving alone to sessions of driving
supervised.
And there are many more reasons for continued supervision on P
plates.
Check out the pages on safe solo driving in our learner
driver's section: