As is often heard when learning a new skill, practice makes perfect, and in no case is this more important than with driving. Every teenager on the cusp of driving age is ready to hit the open road, assured they’ve learned everything they need once they’re licensed. However, as their parents likely know, a license doesn’t make new drivers experts, and this lack of experience can cause potentially fatal accidents.
Fortunately, there are numerous ways of getting practice hours in before your teenager is out on the road with every distraction possible. In addition to driving school, parents can try taking their kids go-karting, which can teach them vital lessons about driving but in a safe environment. Some of those lessons include the following:
Preparing for Distract-Free Driving with Go-Karting
To succeed on a go-kart track, it’s necessary to maneuver properly at fairly high speeds, and to beat your opponents (the most important goal in the moment), you cannot be distracted. You need to manage your speed, know when to use your brake and when not to, and keep the other go-karts (and their likely loud, distracting drivers) from breaking your concentration. When your teen is out driving, they need to contend with not only weather and speed changes, other vehicles, accidents, and animals, but also technologies inside their car (i.e. their cell phones). If your teen can learn to focus and drive distraction-free through go-karting, possibly years before they even get their learner’s permit, they’re already less likely to get into an accident.
Honing Reactionary Awareness
Go-karting is a high-speed activity that, as with regular driving, can lead to high-pressure scenarios, which are times when split-second decisions are necessary. Learning to handle a vehicle while under stress like that is absolutely paramount for becoming a skilled, safe driver, and go-karting allows teens to learn this without the dangers inherent to public roads. The high-speeds you see in go-karting can teach teens to properly brake while managing both steering and acceleration. This improves their reflexes and better hones their reactionary awareness, which could save their lives and definitely prevent accidents from occurring.
Increasing Confidence at the Wheel
Whenever someone starts driving, the vehicle itself can feel like a wild animal they have little control over, and this comes from simply not being familiar with how the vehicle feels. As they continue driving, your teen eventually develops confidence behind the wheel they may have lacked originally, and this comes from familiarizing themselves with their vehicle—how the gears shift, how the pedals feel, how quickly the car accelerates and decelerates, etc.
If they’ve gone go-karting previously, which requires them becoming familiar with the feel of the go-kart quickly, then your teen will likely become more comfortable with their chosen vehicle faster, because they’ve already had the experience of learning the feel of a vehicle—even if it was just around the track a handful of times.
Need to schedule behind the wheel training for your teen driver? Training Wheels is one of the top-rated driving schools for teens in South Jersey. For more information about our services, call us at 609-241-0118.
Photo By NomadSoul1