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-   -   Neighbour doesn't know how to drive. Buys new car, promptly crashes it! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/102514-neighbour-doesnt-know-how-drive-buys-new-car-promptly-crashes-3.html)

It is OK to buy a car and learn driving on it - his mistake was to try it on a brand new one. But I would still blame him for the way he smashed it up right out of his house - he is no novice to road traffic and driving after all, he must have been riding a bike for many years as the OP posted. He should have gone to an open ground at least for a couple of days before driving on the road. The principles of clutch, gear, accelerator and brake are the same, just the positions and the dimensions of the vehicle are different.

At least that is the way I figured when I decided to buy a second hand Dolphin and learn driving on it. That was in 1993. I had been riding bikes for a decade and decided it was time to learn to drive a car! My instructor was a professional cab driver, a one time class mate in elementary school! The duration was to be 10 days and the fee agreed was Rs 500.00!

I took him for taking delivery of the car and driving it to my home. The next day he turned up at 6.30 AM and drove the car and me to a play ground, where I took the wheel for one hour. The next day it was the same routine. The third day he told me to bring the car to his home on the next street, which I did clumsily but carefully! He took over from there and drove to the ground. To his credit, he gave a thorough instruction to the best of his ability. He even placed bricks on the ground to denote entry and exit gates, and made me drive/reverse through them.

Since I did all those without much ado, from the fourth day we hit the GST road. Then on the seventh day I observed a tipper lorry entering the main road from a side lane and braked to a halt in panic. Big mistake on the main road, if someone was following us closely we would have been hit. My instructor took me to task, it would have been ok but he took a little too much liberty because we were childhood friends. Result - I fired him as soon as we reached home and settled his Rs 500.00 then and there. Thereafter I just continued to drive on the roads confidently, and got the licence in three months.

I would blame the RTO Inspector who gave your neighbor that license. LOL!!

Its okay to crash once or twice when you start driving. To quote Batman Begins: "Why do we fall? So that we can pick ourselves up!"

Now before everyone else jumps on me with examples of what would happen if a bystander was to be hurt, let me clarify that I would in no circumstances condone rash driving. Driving at 30+ kph during the formative days is rash! Driving anywhere on the road except on the extreme left during the initial days is rash. Above all, not having the car completely under your control is rash!

But going back to the current topic, let me recount a personal experience. I was learning how to drive. The family driver had been teaching me for around 3 days and it had already gotten addictive. Then on the 4th day, he decided to take a leave. And in a moment of madness, I decided to take the car out myself! Well, I didn't go far. To be precise, I got stuck against the parking pillar when backing out. And in the resultant struggle to get free, I ended up denting and scraping the rear left door. It looked bad. Like really bad. Dejected, I took a cab to my destination. In the cab, I was talking to my mother (more like listening to a constant torrent of scoldings!). And after I hung up, the driver turned to me and said, what happened? I narrated my story, and he narrated one of his own. He was earlier a driver in UAE. And he crashed his car at 180 kmph. 4 passengers died; he was in the hospital for two months; his windpipe had been punctured by the steering wheel. He even showed me the cleft on his chin.

At the end of the story, what he had to say was that, well, accidents happen. You just pick yourself up and get on with it. That is why they are termed accidents! Compared to his story, the dent in my car seemed to be a small affair then. The next day, I successfully completed my first solo drive. Haven't looked back since. If your neighbor actually wants to learn how to drive, tell him that he has to get back into it. A little careful courage will go a long way in laying the foundations of a lifetime of freedom.

My two cents.

Mate I don't think anybody here is opposed to a learner crashing his car. We all make mistakes and that is genuinely accepted so long as its actually an accident and not self created mess.
But learning in closed residential spaces, with people around , without proper driving precautions, without an able trainer, without seatbelts ,etc is in no way an accident waiting to happen. its purely a planned SUICIDE attempt :Frustrati

And why should someone else pay with his/her life for your learning mistakes in the first place?:eek:

+1 to that. The learning can never be in a busy common place. Better be where the traffic is low, maybe some open playground etc.

I had learnt driving at 5 am in the morning when the traffic was almost zero.

That probably came out wrong. I completely agree that learning to drive without proper precautions is rash, and a disaster waiting to happen.

My point of contention was simply that giving up on driving because of a mishap is not the way to go about it.

You can call me daft! I learnt "driving" in 1997. Since then never actually touched a car till I bought my own car in 2006(shortage of vitamin M). My wife had to drive it from the showroom in Thane to Byculla as i had absolutely no confidence or ability to drive on the roads. Learnt driving in the campus for 15 days and then one sunday did a trip to Aligarh-Murud and back.My wife has not touched the car since then:)

But one must be careful and be responsible.Finding open grounds is difficult these days.There will be kids there too,perhaps playing cricket.And driving instructors ( or drivers for that matter) are not necessarily good teachers.And they too teach you on public roads.

He probably wasnt rash just inexperienced. Its when experienced drivers do such things should we call it rash.

Same is my case. Never learnt car or bike driving from anybody, I learnt it on my own. Initial experiences were in busy market areas, and that really boosted my learning curve. Having said that, there are a few gaps - I am still bad at reversing the car :Frustrati

A similar incident happened to me a decade back. Having learnt car driving on my own, I undervalued the importance of proper experience driving. My friend who also was a novice driver (although he kept stressing that he knew driving very well) came along with me for some household work. While returning back, he took the wheel and started the engine. And crashed the car at the first turning.
Overall Loss : 40 odd k + a good friend.

Till date I keep advising every beginner to go to a proper driving school, and also practice at nearby grounds. Every bit of practice helps.

Actually thats one more reason I didn't learn to drive or try my half baked driving on someone else's car.Better to crash your own car than others.Bought my own car and learnt on it.

I was lucky enough to be able to learn driving in a driving school which had Premier Padmini way back in 2006.

Padmini was going to be my first car, hence i learnt it on padmini.
But i still feel everyone should learn on padmini if possible.

You will be able to drive anything after that.
Reversing in a padmini is very easy and that sharpens your reversing skills.

But no one would like to learn driving the hard-way.

My wife refused to learn driving in our padmini even after 20 odd days of learning driving in Driving school's M800, and then we bought a Nano.

But most two-wheeler drivers find it easy shifting to 4 wheels since they already posses skills to drive in traffic and can predict very well.

I have a neighbour who is 55 and has been driving since ages.He owned a RX 100 for 15 years,then a Kinetic-Hyosung GX-125, and is thinking of buying a new car soon, i would surely advice him to practice well, but would not advice him to buy a second hand car.

Buying a second hand car ,with depreciation you lose decent amount of money on most occasions when you want to sell it, which is not practical for a first time buyer as in above example.

The only good thing is you can have a sound sleep if you park on roads , in case of a second hand car.

You fired your cab driver instructor for being cross with you for a fault of yours ?? This is something very different, never heard of it.



Learn it in an amby and you will know what it takes. After the amby, the PP was a piece of cake and a much more rev friendly car.

Not at all! I myself realized my mistake - I had been riding bikes for over a decade then, and the rules are after all the same whatever the vehicle - but as I said , he took a little too much liberty. Means, he used some words he should not have!

It is better to have help by way of a good driver/trainer in the co driver's seat till attaining confidence. Now in cities professional trainers of class are available who charge up to Rs 150 an hour. There is no need to be reluctant in seeking their services.

@Gansan Cab drivers can never done the role of a professional trainer. Here in your case, as an old class mate he crossed the liberty line and that is it.But if he is your first driving guru respect him.

Sure, man! We are still good friends, he lives in the neighborhood after all and runs his own travel agency now. Both of us are mellowed now and it is all water under the bridge, you know!

agreed. No matter what, if you hired a cab driver, he has his own way of teaching you. Doesnt matter if he is your old school friend, you hired him for 500 rs and he is doing his job. May be you should have dealt with it differently. Let Bygones be bygones. It is always advisable to be trained by a professional training schools like the "Maruti Training school".

I had my training from one of the training schools in Chennai (T.Nagar - SAI Driving school). The Santro which was used was altered in such a way that the Drive's controls (ABC) were replicated for the instructor. 10 classes all it took for my get a sense of the road rules from a car driver's perspective and gave me sufficient confidence to drive the car. Of course, had initial goosebumps but with an oath to drive daily to office, I was confident to drive anywhere.