If you have a full driving licence but haven’t driven for years, have recently bought a very different car, or simply don’t feel as confident behind the wheel as you once did, a refresher driving lesson can be enormously helpful.
In fact, refresher lessons are something I am frequently asked to provide in Sevenoaks.
Some of the people I teach haven’t driven for a couple of years. Others haven’t driven for 10 or even 20 years. Some drive regularly but have bought a much larger family car and suddenly feel uncomfortable parking it or squeezing through narrow gaps.
And others simply don’t enjoy driving anymore.
The important thing to understand is that there is absolutely no requirement to start learning to drive all over again.
You already have a driving licence. There is no test at the end of a refresher lesson and no syllabus that we have to complete. The purpose is simply to identify what is stopping you from driving confidently and independently — and work on it.
Moving from London to Sevenoaks – and suddenly needing a car
One of the most common reasons people contact me for refresher lessons is because they have moved to Sevenoaks from London or another large international city.
In London, it is perfectly possible to hold a driving licence for years without actually needing to drive very much. Public transport, taxis, trains and walking can take care of most journeys.
Sevenoaks is rather different.
Once people move here — particularly when they have children — they often discover that having a driving licence and actually feeling comfortable driving are two very different things.
Suddenly there are school runs, shopping trips, children’s activities and journeys around the surrounding villages. Someone who hasn’t needed to drive for 15 years may now find that driving would make everyday life considerably easier.
That’s often the point at which they contact me.
I haven’t driven for 20 years. Have I left it too late?
No.
I’ve taught people who haven’t driven for more than 20 years.
One of the things that often surprises returning drivers is just how quickly things start coming back to them. They may arrive for their first lesson convinced that they have forgotten everything, only to discover that many of the underlying skills are still there.
Quite often, therefore, we aren’t learning to drive again. We’re getting reacquainted with driving.
How many refresher driving lessons will I need?
There is no predetermined number.
Many of my refresher clients have a single 90-minute lesson and are surprised to discover that this is all they needed before they felt comfortable driving independently again.
We might spend that time revisiting some junctions and roundabouts, driving on a dual carriageway, doing some parking and getting accustomed to the dimensions of the car.
At the end they think, essentially, “Yes. I remember how to do this.”
For someone else, 90 minutes won’t be enough — and that’s perfectly normal.
The objective isn’t to complete a certain number of lessons. The objective is to reach the point where you don’t need me anymore.
Being rusty and lacking confidence aren’t necessarily the same thing
This is an important distinction.
Someone who hasn’t driven for years may simply be rusty. Once we have spent 90 minutes driving around Sevenoaks, everything starts coming back and they’re ready to continue independently.
A driver who has genuinely lost confidence can require a rather different approach.
People lose their confidence for all sorts of reasons. It might follow an accident or frightening experience. Sometimes someone gradually starts avoiding particular roads or situations until eventually their driving world becomes smaller and smaller.
And sometimes what has happened has very little to do with driving itself.
I’ve worked with people who have experienced extremely traumatic events in their lives and subsequently lost confidence in many things, including driving. In circumstances like these, expecting someone to suddenly become a confident driver after one lesson would be completely unrealistic.
It might take several lessons. It might take considerably longer.
That’s OK.
Building confidence without putting you into survival mode
There’s an important balance when teaching someone who lacks confidence.
If we only drive around very easy roads that you already feel completely comfortable with, we aren’t achieving very much.
I therefore need to challenge you.
But there’s an enormous difference between being challenged and being overwhelmed.
If I put you into situations that are so difficult that you become frightened and feel as though you are simply surviving, we risk reinforcing the very anxiety we’re trying to overcome.
Instead, I want to gradually increase the challenge while keeping it manageable.
Confidence isn’t something I can simply tell you to have. Confidence develops when you repeatedly deal successfully with situations that previously worried you.
Each successful experience provides a little more evidence that you can do it.
And eventually you don’t need me sitting beside you to tell you that anymore.
Can I take refresher lessons in an automatic?
Absolutely.
I offer refresher driving lessons in both manual and automatic cars, although when somebody’s principal difficulty is confidence, I often prefer to start in my automatic.
There’s a very simple reason.
Driving requires us to process an enormous amount of information. We need to observe other road users, anticipate hazards, choose our position, judge gaps, negotiate junctions, deal with roundabouts and make decisions.
If you’re also worried about clutch control and changing gears, that’s additional mental workload that may not initially be helping us achieve our objective.
An automatic removes much of that.
It means we can concentrate on the things outside the car rather than worrying quite so much about what’s happening underneath your left foot.
That doesn’t mean you can’t subsequently drive a manual. If you hold a full manual licence, taking refresher training in an automatic doesn’t change your licence entitlement.
Can I have a refresher lesson in my own car?
Yes.
I’m very happy to provide refresher lessons in your car or mine, depending upon which would be most useful.
There are good reasons for choosing either.
Someone who is extremely nervous may initially appreciate using my dual-controlled car. Having an instructor beside them with additional controls can provide an extra level of reassurance.
But sometimes the car itself is the reason we’re having the lesson.
In that situation, using your own car makes much more sense.
“I’ve bought a huge family car and I’m terrified of scratching it”
This is another situation I encounter surprisingly often.
Someone becomes a parent and suddenly their little car has been replaced by a much larger family vehicle.
It may have cameras, sensors and all sorts of clever technology, but it is still considerably wider and longer than the car they’re accustomed to.
They’re now expected to manoeuvre it through the relatively tight roads around Sevenoaks, negotiate parked cars and then squeeze it into a parking space while simultaneously thinking about everything else that comes with having young children.
Understandably, that can be intimidating.
A refresher lesson can therefore be entirely about your new car.
We can look at its controls and features, work out where its corners are, practise judging its width, manoeuvre through tighter roads and spend some time parking until you understand what the car can comfortably fit through.
Practising parking somewhere sensible
If parking is one of the things you’re worried about, I don’t see much value in immediately taking you to the most cramped, chaotic car park we can find.
I will often take refresher clients to Tesco in Sevenoaks.
There are larger parking bays and areas of the car park that tend to give us more space to practise. There are also parent-and-child spaces, which can make this particularly relevant for somebody whose new role as a parent is one of the reasons they’re getting back into driving.
We can initially practise somewhere with plenty of space.
Once you’re comfortable with the principles and understand the dimensions of your car, we can progressively make the exercise more challenging.
Again, the idea is progression rather than survival.
Can we practise my actual school run or regular journey?
Yes — and this is one of the most useful things we can do.
Remember, you don’t have a driving test to pass.
You have a life that you want to get on with.
Consequently, your refresher lesson doesn’t need to resemble a learner driver’s lesson.
If the journey you’re worried about is taking your children to New Beacon or St Michael’s School, let’s drive there.
I’ve worked with new parents who are perfectly capable drivers but are genuinely worried about damaging their new family car while negotiating the roads around their children’s school.
Rather than practising somewhere completely unrelated, we can drive the actual route.
We can look at the junctions, meeting situations, narrow sections, parking and anything else that is causing concern. We can repeat difficult sections if necessary until they become familiar rather than intimidating.
The same principle applies to commuting, driving to Sevenoaks station, shopping, visiting relatives or any other journey that matters to you.
What can we cover during a refresher lesson?
There isn’t a fixed syllabus because everybody arrives with different requirements.
We might work on roundabouts and junctions around Sevenoaks, parking and manoeuvring, judging the width of a larger car, narrow roads and meeting traffic, dual carriageways and joining the A21, changing lanes, driving in heavier traffic, getting accustomed to an automatic, rebuilding manual clutch and gear confidence, understanding the features of a new car or simply driving a particular route that you want to become comfortable using.
We can also look at aspects of driving that may have changed since you originally learned. If you passed your test decades ago, cars, roads and some elements of the Highway Code have inevitably moved on.
But the starting point is always the same:
What would you like to be able to do confidently that you don’t feel comfortable doing today?
That’s what we’ll work on.
Is it embarrassing to have driving lessons when I’ve already passed my test?
Not remotely.
In fact, I think recognising that you’re uncomfortable with something and deciding to get some professional help is a very sensible thing to do.
Having a driving licence doesn’t mean you have to be confident in every conceivable driving situation for the rest of your life.
You might have passed your test 20 years ago and subsequently spent most of your adult life living in cities where you didn’t need a car.
You might have driven small cars all your life and suddenly find yourself behind the wheel of a large SUV.
You might be completely comfortable driving around town but hate dual carriageways.
Or something may simply have knocked your confidence.
None of those things means you’ve become a bad driver.
You might be surprised by how much you remember
Perhaps the most reassuring thing I can tell someone considering refresher lessons is this:
Don’t assume that because you haven’t driven for years, you have forgotten how to drive.
You may be considerably more capable than you think.
I’ve had clients return to driving after very long periods away from the road and discover during a single 90-minute session that most of their ability is still there. They simply needed a calm environment in which to rediscover it.
Others need several lessons to rebuild their confidence gradually, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either.
We’ll use my car or yours. Manual or automatic. We can practise the roads around Sevenoaks generally, or we can concentrate specifically on the school run, the A21, parking your new family car or whatever else is stopping you from driving independently.
There isn’t a test at the end.
There isn’t a predetermined number of lessons.
And there isn’t any judgement about how long it has been since you last drove.
The goal is simply to get you to the point where you feel comfortable getting into your car, on your own, and getting on with your life.