Sydney mum’s $400 mistake while teaching daughter to drive

Touch every mine 16 year old daughter Kitty How to Drive cost me an extra $423 this week after an accident during our trip first evening driving lesson. And it was completely my fault.

So far Kitty has mainly driven with me, and a little with her cousin, and recently she pointed out to me that we still had to drive at night.

Learner drivers in New South Wales must drive a minimum of 20 hours at night as part of their 120 hours of supervised driving.

During summer time, we would get too tired after work and school. By the time the sun set, neither of us felt like driving.

But now that daylight saving time is over, there are plenty of places to go.

So we headed out for our first night driving lesson in Sydney’s Hills District.

I chose to drive west that evening, thinking the newly resurfaced roads in Kellyville and Rouse Hill would be the perfect canvas to teach her how to drive at night.

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There were only a few hiccups, and the aforementioned extremely expensive ones.

We headed west on Windsor Road towards Kellyville and approached a major intersection on the way to Rouse Hill that I’ve driven through a million billion times on the way to the shops or the vet. But I would always turn right at the intersection. I had never turned left before.

And I don’t think I’ve driven through it much at night.

We tried to turn left, and in the dim light I didn’t see that the first left turn would put us in the T-Way bus lane instead of Windsor Road, and by the time I realized it, Kitty was halfway through a perfect left turn onto the road.

I didn’t want to startle her, so after she completed the turn, I calmly explained my mistake.

She panicked anyway, and for me that is the most important lesson of the evening: she learned to stay calm while driving when things don’t go as well as you had hoped.

‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing we can do. The safest option is to turn off the T-Way at the traffic lights ahead. Stay calm and keep going,” I repeated until we managed to turn it off.

I knew I would probably get a fine, and it would be hefty.

And Kitty wasn’t feeling too good about our first night driving lesson, which was only 20 minutes into it, but we still had 40 minutes to go, so I decided to direct her from the main roads and intersections, thinking it would be a little easier than what we had just experienced.

So I steered her toward Glenhaven, which I didn’t drive through much at night either.

Glenhaven Road doesn’t have many street lights, Kitty and I have now discovered, and there are also many roundabouts that were difficult to see.

I slowed her speed and we concentrated on navigating the roundabouts that kept popping up, trying to see the road ahead as the cars gathered behind us.

I was hoping she wouldn’t notice the cars behind us, but I guess not, because she was concentrating on spotting the roundabouts.

Finally, after what seemed like a million hours, we saw the intersection ahead, allowing us to turn onto the Old Northern Road and head home on familiar roads with much more lighting that we had driven before.

We went straight home and by then it was almost an hour, and that was enough for our first night driving adventure.

The fine for turning onto the T-Way follows quite quickly. $423. Ouch. But we won’t make that mistake again, I’m sure.

And this is the part of teaching your kids to drive that no one tells you. You’re going to make mistakes as an instructor, even if you’ve been driving for decades, like me, because it’s a little scary to teach your child how to drive.

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Kitty is an excellent driver. She is very calm, measured and careful. Unlike her brother, who is a little too confident and says that he would like to honk back at people who honk at him, something I have strictly forbidden, because it is illegal to honk at people unless you warn of impending danger.

This is true. I had to look it up and show him.

“In NSW, below Traffic Rules 2014 Regulation 224you may legally honk only to warn other road users or animals of the approach or position of your vehicle, or as part of an anti-theft/interlock device,” according to the NSW government website.

“Using a horn to express anger, frustration or ‘hello’ is illegal and could result in a fine of approximately $349 – $410.”

And I’d like to teach my kids to drive with a minimum $400 fine, thank you very much.

I had hoped that, upon seeing the ‘L’ plate on the car, the powers that be would take pity on us for what was clearly an innocent mistake, but that was clearly not the case.

Kitty and I will soon be driving at night more often, and we will definitely pass the same intersection again.

Not only did I underestimate how scary teaching your kids to drive can be, and how it can lead to instructor mistakes, but I also learned so much about the latest road rules, many of which have changed since I first got my driver’s license.

I think Kitty and my son will both be excellent drivers, and I will certainly have improved a lot having taught them both.

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