Learn how to get your driver's license when you're older.
5 Tips to Get Your Driver's License When You're Older
Closed Caption
Introduction
- Are you 20, 30 or 40, or maybe even older and working towards getting your license? Believe it or not, that's the norm, not the exception.
Today, we have five tips and strategies for you to get your license when you're older.
Stick around, we'll be right back with that information.
Get Your License Regardless What You May Think or Feel
Tip number one, just do it, like Nike says.
Go and get your driver's license.
Because you're going to be older, you might as well be older with a driver's license and a sense of accomplishment.
On the other hand, driving and knowing how to drive and being able to drive on your own is incredibly empowering.
It gives you a sense of confidence.
It gives you a sense of freedom.
There are so many things that you can do, and if you're older and you've been living in a large metropolitan with good transit systems, now you can drive out to the country and other places and visit your friends and whatnot.
Of course, after all this craziness of the pandemic is over.
It's empowering.
Go and get your license.
How to Overcome Fear & Anxiety When Learning to Drive
Number two, overcoming anxiety and fear.
Yes, you have some fear and trepidation because maybe you're older and you were getting the license, because you were living in a city and you were taking public transit.
It was really good.
And now you have to get your license because you're moving away from the city, or you've got another job and you have to have a license.
Or you had a spouse that was driving around and the spouse passed away or you got divorced, or what happened.
Life happens, know that you're going to have fear, acknowledge the fear and do it any way.
As FDR, my favorite president in the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said "The only thing that we have to fear is fear itself."
And for more tips on overcoming fear and anxiety, look at the card up in the corner here and you can see the full video on tips and strategies to overcome fear and anxiety.
Compete Against Yourself, Not Other Learner Drivers
Tip number three, expectations.
For some of you, you're going to have to take driver education classes.
And you're going to be in those classes with students who could probably be your children or maybe even your grandchildren.
But know that that's going to happen, expect that.
Use the teenagers as a community, people that you can rely on and study with and get help from.
So have that as a sense of community.
And that's really going to help you learn as well.
And know that for some of you, it's going to take you longer.
For every 10 years, that you're over 25 years old, it's going to take you approximately 10 hours more.
So don't be comparing yourself to the younger students who are just picking up and going out and learning how to drive it within 30 or 40 hours.
It may take you a little bit more time.
So budget for that when you're planning your ultimate goal of getting your license, planning, your learner's test and planning your on-road tests, so that you can be successful in passing those tasks and getting to the ultimate goal of earning your drivers license.
Plan the Work and Work the Plan
Tip number four, the goals.
Getting your learners, getting your on-road test, and finally getting your license.
You're going to have to practice.
You're going to have to take some driving lessons with a driving instructor.
For some classes, you can take those and they can be intensive.
So as you're coming up to your on-road driving test and preparing for that, you can book, say, three months out or four months out.
And instead of taking a half an hour lesson here or an hour lesson here and there, and it's all peppered all over the place, take some intensive lessons where you're two or three hours.
As well, work with a driving instructor who has experience working with older people, working with seniors and those types of things.
And insist, when you're working with your driving instructor, you're working with the driving school that you go out and work with the pylons in the parking lot at the beginning.
Slow speed maneuvers, do the slow speed maneuvers because that will help you to get a grasp and a mastery of the fundamentals.
The primary controls in the vehicle:
- the steering wheel,
- the brake
- and the throttle.
As well where the vehicle is in space in place.
So insist on not when your setting your goals and planning out your learning journey and how you're going to get from here where you are now to where you want to be of finally getting your license.
Like Clothes, the Car Must Fit You
And the last tip, tip number five.
When you get to driving and you have a car, make sure that you get a car that fit you well.
You need to be comfortable in the vehicle that you're driving, because if you're in a vehicle that you're not comfortable with, it has a lot of blind areas.
For example, a few years ago I test drove an FJ Cruiser, which is a Toyota vehicle, it had enormous blind areas.
I did not feel comfortable in that vehicle.
So I wouldn't buy that vehicle.
And for you, as an older learner driver, you have more resources, at least we hope you have more resources because you're learning how to drive and buying a car and those types of things, so pick one that works for you.
Don't settle, right?
Don't buy a hot sports car because you think that it looks great and you're going to look awesome in it.
Buy something that you feel comfortable driving, that you feel comfortable maneuvering through parking lots and doing slow speed movers and whatnot.
And as well, last point of course, make sure that your vehicle is insured with the proper insurance for you as a new learner driver and for the requirements of, you know, you're going to be driving in the city area and those types of things, because that's going to determine what the cost of your insurance is.
But at least to make sure that you have good insurance on your vehicle.
For another video, click here.
To subscribe, click here.
And remember, pick the best answer, not necessarily the right answer.
Have a great day, bye now.
