Driving tips for supervisors Guide

Introduction

Why being a supervisor is such an important job

If you are teaching someone to drive, you play an important role in developing their lifelong driving habits. It can be difficult to teach someone to drive—particularly in the early stages.

As a supervisor, you don’t have to take full responsibility for teaching your learner to drive. You can choose to have an accredited driver trainer to teach them more specific driving skills and techniques.

Your learner driver can have more than 1 supervisor, but there should only be 1 supervisor for each driving lesson.

Gaining experience behind the wheel is crucial to keep young people safe on the roads and prepare them for their provisional licence and unsupervised driving. Most fatalities involving young drivers are due to:

• inexperience
• overconfidence
• deliberate risk taking.

The following guide can provide you with some key ideas to support you in teaching a learner how to drive.

• Preparing to be a supervisor

  Before you get in the passenger seat

  A supervisor of a learner driver can be an accredited driver trainer or a person who meets the supervisor criteria.

  To supervise your learner driver, you must:

  • hold a current open licence for the class of vehicle your learner driver will drive, and have held an open licence for this class for at least 1 year
  • ensure that your licence isn’t expired, suspended or cancelled
  • when supervising you must not have a blood or breath alcohol concentration (BAC) of equal to or more than 0.05. We strongly recommend you observe a no alcohol BAC limit.
  • use a vehicle that’s correctly registered, insured and roadworthy
  • have clearly visible L plates attached to the front and rear of the vehicle
  • sit in the front passenger seat and ensure you have a clear view of the road
  • not use a phone on speaker while your learner driver is driving if they’re under 25
  • have a good understanding of the current road rules
  • you should not be accepting payment or reward for supervising a learner driver unless you are an accredited driver trainer.

  Accredited driver trainers in Queensland

  In Queensland, someone who gives learner driver training for payment or reward, whether as a self-employed person or an employee of someone else, must be accredited as a driver trainer under the Transport Operations (Road Use Management – Accreditation and Other Provisions) Regulation 2015.

  A reward or payment is defined as receiving a benefit, commission, fee, salary or wage in Transport Operations (Road Use Management – Accreditation and Other Provisions) Regulation 2015, schedule 7.

  You can read more about how to become an accredited driver trainer in Queensland.

  Starting Conversations

  You can start conversations about driving before your learner driver gets their learner licence.

  While you’re travelling together in the vehicle, explain the driving tasks you’re thinking about as you drive. Talk to your learner driver about how you:

  • scan the road environment
  • perceive and recognise hazards
  • make decisions to avoid them.

  Helping the learner driver build road awareness will make it easier when they start driving. As your learner driver progresses to their provisional licence, this assistance can make a big difference to their safety and driving future.

  Supervising a learner driver

  Your learner driver can enrol in PrepL from the age of 15 years and 11 months. This gives them a month to complete PrepL and obtain their learner licence on their 16th birthday. Read more about getting a learner licence.

  Once the learner driver has their learner licence, they can drive with a supervisor. This can be an accredited driver trainer or a person who meets the supervisor criteria.

  If you are planning on supervising a learner driver, you can access additional resources including:

  • You can enrol in the PrepL Supervisor Course to refresh your knowledge of the road rules, download lesson plans and work through helpful guides on how to teach your learner.
  • Download Your Keys to Driving In Queensland to refresh your knowledge of the road rules.

  Each learner progresses at a different rate. Logging 100 hours of supervised driving experience doesn’t mean they’re automatically ready for their practical driving test. The learner period is one of the safest times to get experience—even if it means delaying a practical test until the learner is completely confident.

  ---

• Planning a lesson

  Lesson structure

  It is important to plan your lessons prior to taking your learner driver out on the road:

  • Decide what driving task is important for your learner driver taking into consideration:
    - what driving skills the learner driver already has
    - what skills they need to learn or revise
    - the difficulty of the tasks (ordering them from easiest to hardest).
  • Explain the task to the learner before and during the lesson, and ask them to tell you how they’ll do it.
  • Have the learner try the task as you talk them through it.
  • Let them know how they went, giving clear, positive and constructive feedback.

  Have the learner practise the task until you’re both confident they can do it confidently and safely.

  Tips for planning lessons

  • Pick a location and a time to hold the lesson. Make sure the location and route suit your learner’s current driving ability.
  • Start with short, frequent lessons and focus on one new driving skill each lesson so the learner doesn’t get overwhelmed.
  • Consider questions the learner might ask you about driving. Our StreetSmarts website provides advice on speeding, driver fatigue, driver distraction and other driving techniques.
  • Driving tasks that seem easy to you may be difficult for your learner to perform or understand at first. It takes time and practice to develop the skills to become a safe and competent driver.
  • Allow time at the end of the lesson for review and questions.

  Communicating with learner drivers

  When you’re instructing your learner driver, how you say something is as important as what you say. These tips will help you keep the learner calm and focused on the task:

  • When attempting a driving task or a driving trip, break it down into smaller steps and review successes and mistakes when the task is completed.
  • Give directions well in advance and keep your language consistent.
  • Try to keep your instructions short and simple. The learner will be concentrating hard on the task at hand. If you need to have a longer discussion, pull over safely first.
  • Be patient and use positive language - use words like ‘correct,’ ‘ok’ or ‘yes’, rather than ‘right.’
  • Avoid starting or continuing driving if you or your learner is upset or frustrated. Take a break and resume when you are both calm.
  • Encourage your learner driver to talk about any concerns or questions that they may have, and reassure them that it takes a lot of practice and experience to become a safe driver.
  • Try and give constructive feedback. Keep your language simple and speak in a calm voice. Remember to balance critical feedback with praise when your learner successfully completes a driving task.
  • After the driving lesson, have a debrief. Explain to your learner driver what went well and ask them what they thought went well. You can also discuss what didn’t go so well by providing better next time.
  • Model safe driving behaviour yourself.

  ---

• Gaining experience and avoiding hazards

  Gain experience

  In the early stages, start driving in zero to little traffic. Focus on developing your learner driver’s ability to safely control the vehicle. Some questions you might consider running through with your learner driver:

  • Are they seeing and reacting to other road users by watching for traffic (back, front and sides) and using mirrors
  • Can they drive in a straight line and keep left?
  • Can they accelerate, brake, reverse, and take corners smoothly?
  • Can they operate the gears and steering wheel correctly (if applicable)?
  • Are they using their indicators where necessary?
  • Are they keeping a safe distance from other vehicles?
  • Do they know the speed limit of the road they are on?

  Once your learner has mastered all the basic skills, they need to get practice in a variety of conditions. This will allow them to develop all driving skills necessary to become a safe driver. It is important that learner drivers also have lots of time to practice safe driving in a supervised environment. This means that in conjunction with their learning, they can form good habits.

  We recommend working through the following tasks with your learner driver in a variety of conditions:

  • adjusting speed to suit traffic and road conditions
  • obeying traffic signs, including speed limits and speed limit changes
  • scanning the road and traffic to recognise and anticipate the behaviour of other road users, including other cars, cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians
  • correctly handling roundabouts and complex intersections
  • reversing and parallel parking
  • doing U-turns
  • doing hill starts
  • merging safely.

  It’s important that your learner driver also understands how to safely share the road with others. Teach them to be aware of their own vehicle, and understand how to safely interact with others.

  • Motorcycles: watch for motorcyclists – they are smaller and more difficult to see than other traffic
  • Heavy vehicles: be aware of the driver’s blind spots and that they need more room to stop (adjust following and overtaking distances accordingly)
  • Buses: may be stopping frequently and pedestrians may be about
  • Bicycle riders: be aware of bicycle riders and leave the required distance while passing
  • Pedestrians: take care around pedestrians and check speeds when pedestrians are about, e.g. in school zones and times, around shopping precinct (also remember that children and young people may behave unpredictably)

  Avoiding hazards

  Being able to perceive and avoid hazards is essential to becoming a good driver. This is an important part of your learner driver’s driving experience.

  There are 3 key steps to developing good hazard perception skills:

  Scan > Recognise > Respond

  As your learner gets more experience in driving more independently, ensure they increase their ability to complete these steps.

  Step 1: Scan

  The first step to good hazard perception is being able to identify risks by scanning the environment. The best way to develop your learner drivers’ hazard perception is to describe potential and actual hazards, and then provide them with lots of on-road driving experience.

  Start with a commentary drive. Talk to your learner about where you look. Start by pointing out the hazards while you are parked. Next, have your learner driver point out hazards while you are driving.

  When your learner driver is behind the wheel, ask them to describe possible hazards while they are scanning. It is your job to alert them to any they might miss. Remember to teach them to look beyond the car in front, and scan the entire road environment.

  This discussion helps your learner driver form good driving habits by continuously scanning the road environment.

  Step 2: Recognise

  Your learner driver needs to be able to recognise the difference between potential hazards and hazards they need to respond to.

  A hazard can be any potential source of danger on or near the road that could lead to a crash. It can come from any direction.

  By continuing to discuss this with your learner driver and helping them identify any hazards, you’ll increase their awareness and ability to respond quickly.

  Step 3: Respond

  By learning to recognise a hazard early, your learner driver can make well-informed decisions on the safest way to respond.

  For example, by noticing a vehicle that’s slowing down and indicating 3 or 4 vehicles ahead, they can adjust their speed before the vehicle directly in front has even applied their brakes.

  Having time to make decisions can be the difference between responding safely and having a crash.

Driving tips for supervisors, 17 Apr 2026, [https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/licensing/getting/learner/driving-tips-for-supervisors]

This document is uncontrolled when printed. Before using the information in this document you should verify the current content on https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/licensing/getting/learner/driving-tips-for-supervisors.