The Pinellas Driving School approach to driver education is a personal and practical one. Our in-car lessons emphasize driver confidence and safety. We start by evaluating the actual skills and abilities of the student in the car with them driving. Students who have never started a car before, much less driven one, are going to need a far more basic approach than other students who may be looking to fine-tune their skills before taking the road test for their license. A student who is already licensed and may be looking to enhance confidence or general skills will require yet another approach. No matter what, we’ll adjust the flavor of our in-car lessons to match students’ experience and goals.
New Drivers
If we’re teaching a student who is a new driver, we’ll spend the time necessary to ensure that the student is fully comfortable with the car before getting them driving. Proper seat and steering wheel adjustment, hand placement, and mirror adjustment might be our starting points. For a more experienced student, we may try to build confidence with skills such as negotiating turns, smooth acceleration and braking, smooth and sure quick stops, emergency stops, lane management, and looking far enough ahead to avoid most of the surprises on the road. The only way to learn these things is with in-car lessons, behind the wheel, with an experienced and patient instructor.
No matter what level of skill, we try to explain the “why” behind the instructions that we provide during our in-car lessons. Whether the reason is rooted in physics, in the mechanical capability of the car, in state driving laws, or in common courtesy, we believe that it is important to understand why. We’ve found that when students understand why they are doing something, they are likely to remember more of that information. We try to make our directions and the explanations simple and understandable, and if students don’t understand, we explain it another way, we demonstrate it, we practice it… it’s worth the time that it takes at every step in the process!
As a result, we find that students who have completed a course of in-car lessons with us become safer and more confident more quickly. Teach a driver thoroughly from the beginning, you get a better driver!
More Experienced Students
Please understand that regardless of experience and prior training, whether by family/friends, public school driver’s education, or another driving school, we’re ALWAYS going to start with the basics, and we simply can’t teach driving with a single lesson. Our experience has taught us that we can’t trust that ANYONE has taught a student ANYTHING, and for that reason, we are thorough. Now, we might be able to buzz through information very quickly with an experienced student… but, we’re going to go through it regardless.
So, while we might not feel the need to start a student with claimed experience in a parking lot, we WILL start in a neighborhood and verify basic skills, knowledge and habits at that level before doing anything else. And we’ll remediate skills at that level as-required before moving on. After that, we’ll continue our evaluation and teaching to the next level, and so on. We’re not going to skip steps, but we’ll get through them as quickly as possible given the experience and demonstrated ability and knowledge of the student.
But, what about the Driver’s Test?
We don’t offer testing services, all we do is teach driving. We see testing our own students as a conflict of interest.
Be aware that the Florida State driver testing system leaves a lot to be desired. The “written test” is a very limited and very easy multiple choice test. The “road test” doesn’t require driving over 20 mph, making lane changes, or highway merges. It covers only the most basic of skills. Passing the road test and having a full driver’s license is absolutely no indication that a person is actually ready to safely drive on the street!
For the record, be it known that we absolutely WILL NOT just “teach the test”. There are other schools that might be willing to do that for you. Our goal is to produce safe and confident drivers, not just push people through the driving test. If you’re on board with that, then we’re the school for you!
But, I only want Test Prep!
If we get a new-to-us student looking to “just prepare for the test”, here’s how we handle that: Our focus is safe driving, not just passing Florida’s silly road test. We don’t want students passing the test and then crashing within 2 weeks!
We’ll take the student out in the car and evaluate. We’ll start in a neighborhood and check the basics, and we’ll progress from there. In each driving nenvironment, we will verify skills and knowledge and remediate as-necessary. Once we feel you’ve demonstrated competence and confidence to be driving independently on city streets, then we’ll review the road test specifics with you. And one lesson may or may not be enough. If that philosophy suits you, get signed up, we’ll make sure you’re prepared for the real world while we prepare you for the test!
In Conclusion
For us, the bottom line regarding teaching driving and license testing is this: If you really know how to drive, you will pass the road test. Don’t focus on just passing the test. The test is absurdly easy. Driving in the real world is not. Give us the time to thoroughly teach you to drive, practice appropriately, and the road test will take care of itself.