Common mistakes of the experienced driver 

Mistakes are usually due to overconfidence, informal training and bad habits.

Drives with one hand

Short turns

Fails to yield right of way

Too fast

Not looking over shoulder

Not stopping properly at the stop signs

Going through yellow lights

Common mistakes of the inexperienced driver

Mistakes are usually due to inexperience and lack of confidence.

Too slow

Too cautious

Fails to yield right of way

Poor observation

Poor steering control

Not taking enough lessons

Who drives better?

The person with the ten lessons or the person with the ten years worth of driving experience?

The DMV recommends at least 30 hours of driving. (Reference the link or the page in the learner’s manual) The reason they recommend so many hours is so that you can give yourself the best opportunity to gain enough experience to become a good driver.

The experienced driver

Experienced drivers tend to rely on their experience as opposed to formal driving lessons. This is usually a mistake. Most experienced drivers will fail because of this choice but if they do choose to take formal lessons, their chances of passing the test can go up tenfold with just one.

The road test is not just a test of whether or not you can drive but it is also a test of whether or not you know the rules. For the most part, what would be considered "normal everyday driving" would not be considered correct driving on your road test.

Most of the things that would be considered normal driving practices by other drivers are not technically correct or are just plain illegal.

(Examples)

Driving with traffic but over the posted speed limit

Pausing or rolling thru a stop sign

Speeding up thru a yellow light

Driving with one hand

Not signaling

Most of the things that would be considered normal driving behavior would automatically fail you on the driving test. Do you do these things? Can you

break yourself out of that habit before the test? What else is there that you can fail for that you don’t know about? There’s a hundred different things that can fail you. Do you know all of them? Take a lesson.

The number one reason why experienced drivers fail the road test is probably overconfidence. Overconfidence leads to the attitude…

“Oh I don’t need any lessons, I can drive”

Yeah you can drive…

But can you pass your road test? 

A lot of experienced drivers will fail their road test several times because of this attitude, when just one lesson with a driving school could have helped them. Take a practice test or lesson. Let’s call it a Reality Check lesson. Let's see if you are as good as you think you are. Most experienced drivers will fail a practice test. 

They say it takes doing something twenty times to form a habit. So how long will it take you to

break your bad ones? Think about it. And It may not be just one bad habit you need to correct. It may be several. Doing a practice road test with a driving school can expose many of these bad habits.
           

The inexperienced driver is faced with other challenges.

The inexperienced driver is like a lump of clay whereas an experienced driver is like a hardened statue. It is easier to mold the clay into what you want than it is the statue.

The inexperienced driver usually comes to his/her driving experience with a clean slate.

If an inexperienced driver learns with friends/family they are more likely to pick up the bad habits of the person or people that they drive with. But if they learn to drive with a driving school they are more likely to learn the proper techniques and good habits needed to pass their road test.

The challenge of the inexperienced driver is to find a good instructor and to take enough lessons to pass their road test.

Due to cost and/or time constraints most inexperienced drivers do not take enough lessons to gain enough experience to be able to pass their road test.

The inexperienced driver tends to lack confidence. Confidence is a major part of being a good driver. Confidence comes from experience, time on the road, knowing what to expect in certain driving situations and how to handle them.

So on one hand you have a highly skilled driver with poor technique and on the other hand you have a driver with minimal skills but they have excellent technique. Who has a better chance of passing their road test?

Who would you trust with your car? the person who's been driving for ten years or the person who's been driving for ten lessons?

Who has a better chance of passing their test?

The person with the ten years driving experience who never took a driving lesson is most likely a better driver than the person with only ten lessons. But the person with the ten lessons would probably have better chance of passing the road test.

The road test is mostly about following the rules. Someone with formal training tends to follow those rules. Someone without formal training often does not.

It's a matter of skill vs. technique. The ultimate goal is to combine the two.

Bad habits need to be corrected before your road test. And sometimes unlearning bad habits is more difficult than learning it the correct way in the first place.

Things in favor of the experienced driver:

Confidence

Knowledge of the road and other driver

Skill

Things not in favor of the experienced driver:

Overconfidence

Bad habits

Lack of knowledge of the proper rules and technique

Not as good as they think they are

Things in favor of the inexperienced driver(properly trained):

Knowledge of the proper rules and techniques

Good habits

Things not in favor of the inexperienced driver:

Lack of confidence

Usually needs more lessons

Nervousness

Little knowledge of the road and other drivers

Not a highly skilled driver

Experience is what gives an experienced driver a better chance of passing the road test but too much experience can hurt him. The more driving experience you have the more prepared you are for those unpredictable things that happen during the course of driving. And The more prepared you are for the road the more comfortable you become. But the more comfortable a person becomes the more likely they are to lapse into bad habits.

Your typical new driver may take somewhere between 10 and 20 lessons. Which is far below what the DMV recommends as the “minimum”. So it is nearly impossible to learn everything there is to know about driving in the course of 10 lessons. That is just scratching the surface. Learning to drive, learning what to do and what not to do, in a given situation can be a lifelong process. You could be driving for twenty years and then all of a sudden experience something new. So in your efforts in preparing for your road test keep that in mind.