What are some common mistakes that you should avoid with regards to the steering wheel when you go for your driving test in Australia. I'm Omid, the founder of Emu Driving School in Brisbane. So first off, what's the proper way to hold the steering wheel. Just imagine this steering wheel is a clock, 12 here, 6 here, 3, and 9 here. the proper way to hold the steering wheel would be on 10 and 2 position. So 10 here 2 here. All the fingers inside. The little fingers should be resting on this part of the steering wheel. All the fingers inside, thumbs on the wheel. We don't want to open our arms like that or close our arms like this. We just want to relax our arms and hold the steering wheel just like this. In this position we have the best control over the steering wheel. And that's how we hold the steering wheel if you're driving on a straight line. We'll talk about the turns shortly. So some common mistakes is holding the steering wheel. One, putting the thumbs inside the steering wheel and holding on to the steering wheel too tight. Two, hanging hands on the steering wheel like this. Three, holding the steering wheel from the bottom like this. Four, right hand on the top, left hand down the bottom. Five, left hand on the top, right hand down the bottom. Six, putting the right hand on the steering wheel and left hand on the lap or on the gear. Seven, keeping the left hand on the steering wheel and resting the right elbow on the window frame like this. So you want to avoid all these awkward positions and have your hands on 10 and 2 position. And also when you drive, you want to make sure that your hands are not shaking and you have a nice and steady steering wheel. So now a few mistakes to avoid when it comes to turning the steering wheel. One, putting the hands inside the rim of the steering wheel. This is a very dangerous way to turn the steering wheel. And the reason for that is that there is an airbag mounted in your steering wheel here. And this airbag is going to be deployed to protect you against injuries in case of a car accident. If your hand is inside the rim of the steering wheel at the time of the airbag deployment, the airbag might break your wrist, arm, or throw your arm to your face and break your skull. So definitely avoid doing that. Two, palming or turning the steering wheel with the palm of the hand. Three bringing both hands to the left side of the steering wheel. Four, bringing two hands to the right side of the steering wheel. Two hands on one side. Five, crossing arms. This is an extremely awkward position. In case you want to turn your steering wheel a little bit more, the movement of your arms are restricted. Six, turning the steering wheel with only one hand. A lot of experienced drivers usually do that. And seven, letting go of the steering wheel after turns. There are two proper techniques to use for turning the steering wheel. And when you go for your driving test, the examiners want to see if you are using any of those two techniques. The first technique is push and pull. The push and pull technique goes like this, for example, let's say we want to turn left at this intersection. We have a firm grip with the right hand and loose grip with the left hand. And we start turning the steering wheel pushing with the right, pulling with the left. Pushing with the right and pulling with the left. We want to make sure that our hands stay on the top half of the steering wheel. We are still in 10 and 2 position and when we go through the turn, we do the exact opposite. Pushing with the left and pulling with the right. The second technique is hand over hand, and it goes like this. Let's say, for example, you want to turn left again at this intersection. So we keep both hands in 10 and 2 position and once we turn, we lift the left hand, place it next to the right hand and opening the arms. And then lift the right hand, place it next to the left hand and opening the arms again. And you're now in 10 and 2 position again. And something else that we can do to make sure our steering wheel is even smoother than that is to let this steering wheel roll back between our palms. So at this turn, for example, we turn and after the turn, we just let the steering wheel roll back between our palms. It's okay. We can do that as long as the steering wheel is still touching our palms and we can hear this sound. The sound of the steering wheel touching our palms. We don't let go of the steering wheel completely. One common mistake some people make when they use the hand over hand is this, so when they turn the wheel, they place the other hand so far apart from the other one and they cross arms. We don't want to do that. We want to place the other hand right next to the- for example, right hand here. Just right next to it, not so far apart from it. For example at this turn we'll see again. So hand over hand. The other hand goes right next to the other hand. Right next to the other hand. We don't want to place them so far apart from each other. You don't have to stick to only one of these techniques. You can use a combination of both. In fact, for wide turns, a turn for example, like this one here, it's easier to use the push and pull technique. And for some sharp turns, when you need to turn the car a little bit quicker it's better to use the hand over hand technique. And around the bends when the road is bending, we don't need to turn the wheel so much. So for example, like these bends around here, we can have both hands on the wheel and just move the wheel slightly to follow the bend. Just two more things to avoid, if you use the push and pull technique to turn the steering wheel, make sure you don't do this,
shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. You want to turn the steering wheel with a steady pace. So like at this turn, you want to turn the steering wheel nice and steady, And smoothly like this. Push-pull, push-pull. We don't push and pull. Push and pull. Push and pull. And the other thing, if you want to let the steering wheel roll back to neutral position by itself make sure you don't do this. Some students, they just grab- leave, grab-leave, grab-leave, grab-leave. Make sure you let it roll back between your hands nice and smooth with a steady pace. So here is a tip for beginner drivers. If you want to master a technique, the push and pull technique which is the best technique to use at the early stage of your driving, you can buy one of those steering wheel covers from Amazon or from Supercheap, Autobarn, Repco and try to use that cover to master your skills. Then when you start driving, you don't think about that technique as much At the early stages of driving, the beginners, they usually think, okay, push with this one, pull with that one. Push with this one, pull with that one. But the more you do this, the easier it gets and you don't think about the technique as much. So what you can do as you are sitting on the couch watching movie, Netflix, you can just hold your steering wheel and just push-pull, push-pull, push-pull, push-pull and turn it left and right. and that's how you can master this technique. And if you buy that cover, later on, you can use it for your car. It's a cover that goes over the steering wheel. And this is a tip for experienced drivers. Some experienced drivers, they find it really hard to do the push and pull or hand over hand but they make a lot of mistakes that we just mentioned. So my advice is to not overthink it. Just- don't even think about the steps of this technique, push and pull, or hand over hand. Just avoid those mistakes and you should be fine. Don't overthink it. Old habits die hard. It takes some time to get used to the new technique and to avoid the mistakes that you've been doing for long time. If you like to see more videos like this you can subscribe to this channel. Press the bell icon and select all to receive notifications for new videos as soon as they come out. Also, if you like to be surrounded by a supportive community of learners from all over Australia, feel free to join our private Facebook group, "Driving (Test) Support Australia" where you can ask your questions in a judgment-free zone.
