[saitvsk23]

Originally Posted by S.Marine

Well, i feel somewhat qualified in offering advice here because i successfully taught my wife how to drive (or so i like to believe).

It was essential to me that she learns driving because i was kind of weary from driving non-stop during family trips. I started off by walking her through all the basics of the IC engine, the components, what each pedal actually does, what is going on inside, the whole nine yards. She was a quick learner but tended to lose focus on multiple things which led to me shouting, and often times ended up with me being on the receiving end of divorce threats.

She fully learnt driving only when - i know you'll hate to hear this - she drove alone. Without unnecessary inputs from me. For a non-technical person, there is already information overload while driving, and people like us (reasonably safe drivers) tend to constantly voice our anticipation of a probable situation. Like for instance, upon seeing a motorcyclist in our path at an intersection, i would invariably expect him to cross over from the wrong side and take precaution to prevent an accident. This constant nagging was too much for my wifey to handle. Hence, she found the courage one day and brought the car to the airport to receive me. Once that hurdle was crossed, there was no stopping her. She even learnt parallel parking from Youtube. The downside is that now i have to listen to her criticise my driving all the time.

My 2 cents - there is no substitute to practice. Let your mum have sufficient practice in your presence, then (when you feel it is safe) slowly let her drive alone on empty roads / parking lots. It will build up her confidence immensely. Progress to driving in traffic after that.

Thank you so much for your inputs. In your case it was divorce threats, in my case it's emotional blackmail all day long!😂

I do understand the need to explain her the entire working of the car, as it's pretty crucial. I am not worried about the scuffs the car will be getting, after all, we all fell down while running. We can get it done using insurance.

Once again, thank you so much for your words.

[GTO]

I realised that I just don't have the patience or temperament to teach anyone driving. Driving school is best. For your Mum:

- AT is mandatory. Especially because of the pedal coordination challenges. Get her an AT. AT cars are now available at every price point. AMT not bad for a newbie driver, if budget is a constraint.

- Good driving school instructor in an AT car.

- Taller car would be preferred for her. Better visibility & easier ingress / egress. Something like the S-Presso or Ignis for cheap, or a Creta at the premium end.

[Malyaj]

Since your mom is already very comfortable with riding a two wheeler, it means some aspect of driving are already taken care of, namely

1. The feeling of being in traffic
2. Stress created by people honking at you
3. Basic road safety knowledge
4. Traffic rules

These alone are enough to psyche out most newbies but it should not be the case with her. So it will be a pity if she gives up.

Gear shifting / managing the clutch is the only tricky part and there is really no magic potion here. It will come through practice only. Try driving very early morning and in areas with scant traffic. I hate stereotyping, but I have observed that after a certain age, it does become difficult to pick up new things so patience is also important.

Lastly, at this age it is tempting to give up after failing a few times because one tends to think there is "more to life than being able to drive a car" and such things. If she is passionate as you say, she has to keep trying.

I have personal experience of teaching my wife drive after she got her learner's license. Our initial tryst with manual vehicle was the stuff of nightmares. Had it gone on any longer she would have divorced me
It became little better with AT but my brain is the sort which always thinks "What is so difficult to understand about this" and finally I let her drive alone even though I wasn't very confident. Now she can drive reasonably well.

[KrisTvpm]

FWIW, here's my tuppence!

I am like a little more than twice your age, had been in the same boat as you - only difference it was the missus in my case, not my mom!

She got her driving license way before our marriage, thanks to her father's clout, but was a poor driver!

So, way back in 2007 I decided I must equip her to drive the car by herself, when I have to travel out of town due to work.

Took her out on a relatively less-crowded road, exact same thing as you mentioned happened - a lorry sideswiped the RHS ORVM due to her panic on the road, and she decided "enough is enough I'm not going to drive a car anymore"!

I left it at that for 5 years, then had to travel out of town for almost a year, so prior to that decided to rekindle her driving lessons.

Enrolled her in a driving school, she went thru the 3 weeks daily routine with the "master", came back as good/bad as before!

Now, I started taking her out DAILY morning about 6:30 -- 7:30 for driving lessons in our own car (Zen manual gearshift), in the residential layout which isn't that crowded. There are lots of criss-cross roads/paths and could easily cover 10+ km in 1hour.

Imparted the basics - A/B/C pedals, steering management, using lights/indicator stalks, handbreak usage (she had this extremely bad habit of doing what's known as half-clutch, imparted by the driving school "master"), using BOTH ORVMs + IRVM simultaneously, less-honking + more-attentiveness, NEVER attend to calls/text on the road while driving, check the basics (tyre pressure, brakes, indicators, AC etc.), no unusual/warning lights in the console before taking out the car from home - etc...

This went on for a month, being the better-half & not mom I had the liberty to yell/shout when I got frustrated due to her certain idiosyncrasies [ladyfolk: no disrespect meant, just that I'm a little hotheaded & she's the vice-versa! I'm not an MCP & not stereotyping all ladies are, well, um, y'know... not optimal drivers]

Finally she learnt the tricks of trade, had been driving as & when needed without my assistance/when I travelled out of town, and now she continues.

In return, I learnt lot of patience, and the knowledge that not all people imbibe the lessons at the same pace - you need to be ready to accept that another person maybe better than/worse than you at doing/learning things - patience & perseverance is the key!

So good luck to you & your mom, I'm sure she will catch up soon & be a good driver!

[androdev]

I feel you should not subject her to all this trauma. Somehow arrange a small second hand automatic like A-star or similar and let her driving be restricted to just automatics.

[AJ56]

Practice, practice and more practice! Both my parents are excellent drivers but I have taught my cousin how to drive (successfully). And once you’ve gone over the basics of defensive driving, 3 second rule, etc. the single biggest factor in determining success is the number of hours your mom puts in behind the wheel, knowing she likes cars and has a passion for driving this should be very easy to accomplish.

Put in 1 hr every morning for a month and see the difference yourself. For most people the challenge is getting the learner to practice in the first place.

Also, it’s a personal choice but I’d say sell the Wagon R and get something safer with abs + esp minimum and an auto trans, the future is auto anyway. Having said that, being competent on a manual is an added benefit as many cars on our roads still have a stick shift and being able to drive them in an emergency cannot be overstated. Cheers.

[am1m]

Accept that the older you are the harder it is to to master something that involves brain-hand-eye co-ordination. Not impossible by any means of course, but considerably harder that's all. So keep at it, use early mornings, areas without traffic. But don't expect it to be a quick process. If the person wants to learn, then that's half the job done right there.

Seeing (and anticipating) a few expected comments in a couple of posts about women and driving. Well, my mom taught me how to drive! (I got my license in 1997.) And my wife is a better driver than I am. (All 3 of us learned when we were in our late teens though.) Guys, gender has nothing to do with operating a car or driving well. It's all about practice and the opportunities you get to learn and how early you get to do it. And this makes me realize how important it is to see more women behind the wheel (especially on our highways), to normalize this sort of thing for future generations.

[dileepcm]

My aunt has been through this situation a few years ago. She now drives like a master blaster, I have to admit!

She attended probably 3-4 driving schools and none were helpful back then.
She actually became fed up at some point.

To her luck, she finally found a driving school that had a very young instructor who had no hurry in teaching all what he knew in a few days. Additionally, he approached steering first for many weeks and later added pedals and gears one by one to the learning track.
That made the trick. Slowly she picked up now she drives (m800 manual, 5 speed!) as good as anyone else within Trivandrum city including at night.
So finding some one who knows what works and how to teach by using some out of the box thoughts is what is needed. What works for most others may not work for some. Most probably all your mom's instructors were trying to push all their X number of experiences to her in a few days which not only does not work but also causes a lot of frustration at the end.

Side note: Getting automatic makes it many times easier these days. Given high market for used cards, you could switch for an automatic for relatively low depreciation impact.

[hangover]

Just go out of town and find a very big empty ground.

Show off your personal driving skills for a minute and then give her the wheel.

Let her drive half an hour by herself.

You may sit in the passenger seat and not make any comments from your side.

And that’s really all there is to it.

Repeat next day if you must.

Because that is the way that car will be driven for the next 5 years.

Budget for a clutch replacement every year.

[saitvsk23]

Originally Posted by hangover

Just go out of town and find a very big empty ground.

Show off your personal driving skills for a minute and then give her the wheel.

Let her drive half an hour by herself.

You may sit in the passenger seat and not make any comments from your side.

And that’s really all there is to it.

Repeat next day if you must.

Because that is the way that car will be driven for the next 5 years.

Budget for a clutch replacement every year.

Duly noted. Thanks.

Also, my dad ended up frying the clutch plates at around 3000kms. Apparently it was a manufacturing fault and we just had to pay a little bit from our side. The car is used for a very less amount of time, it'll turn 6 years old, this coming december and the odometer stands at around 10500km.

[headbanger]

Get her an AT and drive nuts out of the car for at least a month or 45 days till your mom is confident with the steed. Go for empty grounds first followed by highways with necessary precautions or broader city roads with sparse traffic. In-city traffic should be the last check. Since your mom drove two wheeler earlier, I am assuming that she has good road sense.
I admire your persistence for making it happen. Good luck.

[justwheels]

A lot has already been said in the thread so I will just a few extra cents:
First it is good she understands the dimensions of the car, so kudos to her for that, many start with that issue itself.

Second, find a large ground somewhere, even outskirts. Let her practice the pedal management there first. Let her follow the 10kmph 1st gear, 20kmph 2nd gear, 30kmph 3rd grear etc... up and down. Atleast she can focus on gear shifts without worrying about traffic then slowly ask her to drive early morning with less traffic.

Possibly this might help.

[1.2TSI7DSG]

I had followed the below simple practices while teaching my wife.

1. Go to a proper driving school. Ensure the trainee is comfortable with the trainer.
2. Give confidence that it's okay to hurt the car. Often as the asset is not yours, people fear using it. So as in your case, the ORVM can be replaced. Replace it and move on. All of us have done this in the past.
3. Get them to handle emergency braking. Start from 10 kmph, and gradually increase the speeds to 30-40 kmph. It gives a flavour of what an emergency may expect from the drivers.
4. Try to get a manual tranny to learn; give them a feel of an automatic once they get their licence. The confidence shoots up drastically.
5. Be patient with the drive. Don't drive from the backseat. Allow, accommodate mistakes

[noopster]

Originally Posted by saitvsk23

And we got her enrolled in Maruti driving classes. She took 12 classes for 8000 INR, and well that didn't work out.

It rarely does. The driving instructors teach only enough for a student to clear the driving test and get their DL. Their real learning actually starts after that.

She understood the steering sense (judging the car's dimensions during driving), but she misses out on pedal management. She often stalls the car, and gets confused pretty quickly.

"Pedal management" is a new term for me But I think what you mean is she releases the clutch too quickly at times which results in stalling. In that case the only solution is practice, practice, practice!

Some tips that may help:

• Choose a quiet road with minimum traffic/pedestrians to do the initial training. She can get her pedal management down pat before venutring out onto busier roads.
• Be patient but firm. Ensure that she learns everything the correct way no matter how annoying or frustrating it may be. Example: do not allow her to use both feet to control the pedals. You may hear excuses like: one of my legs is weak, I find it easier to control the car that way etc. Just ignore it all and be firm.
• Stop thinking of her as your Mom. She is your student and what you are teaching her will help her immensely. But if you cannot establish yourself as an authority figure, maybe you need to look elsewhere for help.
• There are a number of seasoned professional drivers who are happy to take classes to really teach a person how to drive. Find one and employ them. Set clear goals and ride along occasionally to ensure they are being achieved.

She tried driving all by herself once with me in the backseat. There was a lorry driver who was very impatient and decided to overtake us. He overtook us from the right side and ended up knocking off the right ORVM. She has been scared out of her wits since then.

Unfortunate, but that's how it will be at first. It's like teaching a kid how to ride a bike: if you never let go of the back of the bike, they will be "safe" sure, but never learn to ride, even at the risk of a fall. My first week of solo driving I got sideswiped by an impatient BEST bus. My Dad was quite understanding about it and that's what gave me the confidence to continue. If he had blown his top and refused to let me drive again, am quite sure I would have meekly acquiesed. You need to let her build her confidence to take on tricky situations.

So yeah, how do I teach my mom about the pedal management? And how do i teach her about the gear shifts? She feels panicked whenever we drive into traffic, even when I'm the one driving. How do I remove this fear from her? How do I make her understand that the clutch is the most important thing in the entire driving process?

People learn by observation and practice. Take her along even when you are driving and give her a commentary as you go through the motions. Let her take over when she feels comfortable. Don't try to "push" her into difficult situations, instead try introducing one new thing at a time: going up a slope without stalling for example, or parallel parking. Avoid yelling and sarcasm (unless that's what spurs her on!), be patient, committed and consistent (one hour every morning at 7 am, come rain or shine, for example). If you don't see a marked improvement in a month, let's talk!

And men this forum who had to teach your moms or better halves, your perspective is most welcome. It will be extremely useful for me. I can see from the eyes of a man teaching their loved ones.

Hehe...where do you think I am spouting all this gyaan from? My wife learnt driving shortly after we got married, which is to say she learnt the basics from a driving school and got her DL. I had a 3-year old Accent at the time which she actually learnt her chops on. I wish I could say I was as patient as I am advising you to be . But I did insist she stick with it and soon she gained confidence enough to start driving, which she does extremely well now, almost two decades later!

Good luck, hang in there and it will happen for you as well!

[McLaren Rulez]

You have a lot of advice here so I will add one more thing.

Find a good YouTube video of how the clutch and gearbox work. What does pushing in the clutch pedal actually do and why do you need it for a gear change? When you do a handbrake hill start, what is going on mechanically? You don't need this theory knowledge to drive but having it helped me learn how to drive a lot more quickly.