The Practice Stage, From Both Front Seats

Before the license there are months of driving with an adult in the passenger seat. The DMV expects a minor applicant to complete a set amount of supervised practice — commonly described as 50 hours, including 10 at night — certified by a parent or guardian when the driving test is booked. Confirm the current figure on the DMV's own page; it is the number you will be signing your name to.

Who is legally allowed to supervise

For a minor with an instruction permit, supervision generally means a licensed parent, guardian, spouse or adult 25 or older, seated close enough to take control. The permit holder does not drive alone at any point. Not once, not around the block, not to move the car.

Whose insurance is in play

Here is where families get confused, so be blunt about it: a personal auto policy covers the vehicle and the people the policy says it covers. A permit holder practising in a car insured on the household policy is normally covered, but "normally" is doing real work in that sentence. Two things are worth confirming in writing rather than assuming:

• Whether your carrier wants the permit holder listed now or at licensing. Practice varies genuinely between companies — some want to know immediately, others only when the license issues.
• Whether the policy carries a named driver exclusion for anyone. An excluded driver is excluded, full stop, and a family that assumed otherwise finds out at the worst possible moment.

Ask your own carrier and get the answer recorded on the policy, not in a memory of a phone call.

Practising in a car that isn't yours

An aunt's car, a family friend's car, a neighbor's spare vehicle. Coverage attaches to that vehicle and that policy, so it is that owner's insurer who needs to be comfortable — not yours. Ask before, not after.

Making the hours count

Fifty hours of the same three roads produces a driver who is excellent on three roads. Deliberately spread the practice:

• Rain, and the first hour after rain begins.
• Night, and specifically unlit residential streets, not just a lit boulevard.
• Merging onto a freeway from a short on-ramp.
• Reversing out of a tight space with a car waiting.
• A left turn across two lanes of moving traffic — the maneuver that generates the most first-year damage in the calls our office takes.

Logging it honestly

Keep the log as you go, in one place, with the date and the conditions. Reconstructing four months of driving the night before a DMV appointment is how families end up estimating, and the certification is signed under penalty of perjury. It takes ten seconds an evening to avoid that.

The part nobody schedules

Practice how to handle a mistake. Pull over safely, stop, breathe, restart. A new driver who has rehearsed recovering from a wrong turn is far less likely to do something sudden when one happens for real with no adult in the seat.

When the test is booked, the insurance side takes about two minutes to line up. Start it before the appointment, not after.