I understand how long will it take to learn to drive a Manual but what about how long it will take to learn to drive an Automatic Car?

How long will it take to learn to drive an automatic car?

In our last blog post we answered that age old question about how long it will take to learn to drive a Manual car and now we are going to cover the same question but from the perspective of the Automatic option.

As with the first post about the manual option the answer is 'how long is a piece of string'.

Once again the similarities are simple in that learning to drive is an individual experience. The large part of the experience boils to how well, you the learner driver, adapts to the skills you are being taught on a lesson by lesson basis. What reduces the time behind the wheel with your instructor in an automatic is the removal of the need to clutch and change gear as well as the development of the skill to identify when is the best time and place for the driver and the car to make that gear change. All that work is essentially done by the car itself and without that need to think and assess around gear changes does give you a lot less to learn and adapt to.

Typically, in lesson number terms, anywhere from 15-25 hours of Driving Instructor practice would be normal. Sometimes it can take more lessons and sometimes it takes less. It's always the same and it's about how you adapt to the instruction, what you learn and how you apply those learnings on a lesson by lesson basis. Every learner driver is different and every learner driver learns differently so what one learns cannot be applied to the next and the next and the next. From a being competent point of view there a always 3 goals to aim for and become fully at ease with, high levels of all round observation, high levels of control over your vehicle and once you are a master of these you will be a safe and competent driver on the whole. Once you get these 3 things right doing a test will be easy. The more naturally you drive the better the driver you will be.

There is no real, one size fits all answer to "How long will it take to learn to drive a Automatic car?" It will always come down to a number of factors which are the same as in our other post about how long it will take to learn to drive an Manual Car:

• Your relationship with the car.

• Your relationship with your Instructor.

• How well you adapt to your lessons and what you are taught.

The actual operational part of driving is not that hard and once you've got the basics down the improvements will be incremental. The big work comes from applying those basics to the huge variety of situations to what you would normally consider daily driving tasks and including the aspects of safety that will turn you into a safe driver for the rest of your life.