I strongly advice people to go to a driving school to learn driving a car even if they had driven a car some years back. In driving school they will have cars with double brakes, clutch etc., and from the day one they take you on to the main road.
At the same time these driving schools can not make you good at driving let alone making you perfect. If you think that you have learnt driving because of the feeling you got while the instructor was sitting beside you, it would cause terrible disappointment.
First the human psychology. The instructor even with all good intentions would be using the clutch on his side when you do not use it and may even press it before you did it.
You will very soon realize the illusion of your’good learning’ in a driving school the very first day. You feel like you are learning all over again.
At the same time in spite of all this I advice you to go to a driving school at least for two weeks or 15 hour training because it will give steering control and the most important of it all the confidence.
Now you can sit and practice in your car but remember that it should be done in a thinly populated areas and times! For example in Hyderabad I do observe that between 2pm and 3pm the traffic would be very thin and police man would be absent. Some areas like inside of a University Campus and semi urban area would be better for practice runs.
You should always be accompanied by a very good expert or a very experienced person in driving. It is a must and don’t forget because you would sure undergo panic situation. That is why you should appoint a driver at least for the first three months when you buy a new car.Instead you should drive the car while your driver sits besides you! Make it a point that an experienced driver when he sits beside you give you confidence and he will take over the driving wheel when you think that you can not extricate yourself from bad’situations’ and you begin to sweat while horns would be blowing from behind!
The most problems involve engine getting switched off and your inability to change gear quickly and your problems at road inclinations.
DO NOT GO ON THE HIGHWAY WHEN LEARNING.
Though highway appears to have lesser traffic and easy to drive it is extremely dangerous to go on a high way immediately after your driving school experience.
So I do not discuss on that subject.
Coming to the city traffic, upward road inclinations and traffic at the same time give you’dangerous’ time.
Suppose all is going well and you are driving well. You would reach a junction where there is traffic signal and this junction meets the main road with traffic. But the most important point is that this junction is on steep inclination. And inclination upward. But you have to stop for the signal. Yes. You have stopped. When the signal comes to green, you have to move. This means you should take your right leg from the brake and press the accelerator. Simple is it not?
That would be horrible one for a learner. The moment you take off the feet, the car would go back very fast and it would hit the car or auto standing behind. You would press the brakes in an anxiety and your car would stop with a big jolt. The car behind would blow the horn and a long one at that. Again you do this, again the same experience.
First thing to know is that you should not panic or feel insulted or feel bad about yourself. In an anxiety you would make a mistake. Other vehicle drivers behind you come to know that you are new to driving. So try to keep yourself cool.
My friend Vijay told me the trick. Just pull the handbrake. Do not worry. Now it is safe to take your foot off the brake and press the accelerator. Just press it a little and in a very cool manner push down that handbrake. That is all. Your car would move smoothly forward. You may probably think that you car would go forward with a jump or screech. No, not at all. It would go forward smooth as if it were relieved.
But you need not stop at this trick.
You can as the time pass by learn to stop and move forward on steep inclinations without using handbrakes.
How? This is also very simple. While you stopped at steep inclinations, do not use brakes! . It will stop even when you are pressing and holding on to the accelerator a little. You should remember that on a plain ground or on a plain road your car would be moving even when you don’t press the accelerator. When you put your car in first gear, and when you release the clutch slowly the car moves forward.
The same is true when you are reversing. In reverse mostly you do not have to use the accelerator at all even for the diesel cars like Indica! Just release the clutch it will be going backward up to a certain extent of the release, after that you may need to press very little with your toe of the foot so that engine would not be off. Now if you remember this you know that your car will go forward at a speed when you press the accelerator. But on a steep inclination it needs to be pressed a little more than on the plains. You press the accelerator just enough so that so that it would not go backward. That is all. When you have to move simply press it a little more. For an experienced driver all this explanation looks unnecessary and for a beginner he feels it like life and death.
It is better to practice driving on a road full of speed breakers. Generally University campus area and college areas would be full of speed breakers. The beginner will know how to down shift the gear and how to release the clutch. The beginner will know the clutch is the secret. You should be able to drive without pressing or using the clutch too much. You should also become aware of the range of each gear and clutch specific to your car.
If your car is making lot of noise it means you have not put your car in the proper gear. For example women try to drive in a lower gear when they could have shifted to the next higher gear. The engine would be ruined if you drive a car at higher speed in lower gear. The car would be down and out very soon. In the same way if you drive the car totally depending on the clutch, and not shifting to down gear when you could have taken off the foot from clutch, the car would come for repair very soon. Just shift to down gear like a second gear in a thick traffic and take off your foot from clutch.
And most important of all is to learn to reverse on a steep inclination downward. Select a place suitable to this, go upward, stop the car without hand brake or the brake and reverse the car downward from a steep inclination.
A beginner would soon observe that the car reverses in a direction opposite to what he expected. When you turn the wheel from right to left side the car will not go to your right as you might have expected. Your car front wheels are turned directing left and your car will be moving to left!
It is the fail safe system for the reverse gear to work after a little time of a few seconds.
After city traffic experience you should travel slowly on Highways at a time not more than 100 km, even though it is empty. It will prove very costly and dangerous for a learner to go on high ways at high speed.