If you’re planning on getting your license, you probably know that traditional training consists of various theoretical classes, as well as actual driving in real traffic or in a controlled environment. However, in recent years, driving simulators have become increasingly popular, thanks to the lower costs of hardware and software.
Because of this, you might be wondering whether or not driving simulators can help you get prepared for the real thing. Fortunately for all individuals that are wondering the same thing, our article will shed some light on the entire topic. Here is our list of the top eight benefits a driving simulator can provide young drivers with:
1. It’s More Affordable + Safe
People that have never operated a vehicle before lack the knowledge, skills, and of course, experience to do so. Besides this, they also aren’t capable of making a safe and reasonable driving decision at first and this is where a driving simulator comes into play. It’ll allow you to experience the outcome of your decisions – e.g. if you pass a red light at an intersection – without actually getting injured or without causing any damage to your surroundings, something that in a real-world situation can be quite expensive and dangerous.
A training that is partially based on a driving simulator that is well-designed can help with a wide array of things. It could, for example, help you improve how you control your car and it’ll definitely help you understand how to manage traffic. Besides this, it’ll also allow you to understand and experience hazards while on the road, and more importantly, it could allow you to make decisions without suffering the consequences of them.
2. It Allows Training in Different, Rare, And Dangerous Situations
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Even if you’re an experienced driver, it’s possible that you were never exposed to rare and dangerous situations such as having your tire blow or a sudden pedestrian or animal crossing the road while you’re driving. By implementing a simulator into training, people can practice operating a vehicle in different conditions, which is something that would take a lot of time when going through traditional training.
3. Training While Exposed to Different Weather Elements
A simulator will enable people to train while being exposed to different weather conditions, and this is, perhaps, one of the most important benefits that a simulator can provide you with. Since people will be exposed to different elements in combination with traffic conditions, they can test their knowledge and skills, and they’ll also understand how making the wrong decision can influence the overall experience.
4. It Can Be Completely Customized
It’s worth mentioning that a simulator can be completely customized. What does this have to do with learning how to drive? Well, everything. Since the simulator can be customized, trainers can now add new situations to the training such as new technology in cars, new traffic controls, and so on. Besides this, they can also use it for reconstructing actual crash situations, and by doing so, they can educate drivers about what not to do while on the road.
5. It Can Improve The Whole Training Process
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Since a simulator can provide you with so many benefits, the overall training process will be more pleasant and you might end up feeling more confident to apply your skills and knowledge in real-world situations. Besides a simulator, there is also a wide range of online tests available that’ll help you practice for the theoretical examinations. If you want to see how the online driving test works, check this website out.
6. It Removes Frustration That Can Lead to Mistakes
Since a simulator will allow people to learn and go through tasks at their own pace, it’ll remove the frustration that could easily lead to people making mistakes. Besides this, it encourages better comprehension of the materials and it can prompt better use of skills in real situations. This cannot be said for traditional driving practice, mostly because individuals cannot repeat the lessons they require for becoming skilled drivers.
This means that a simulator can allow them to repeat actions that will encourage muscle memory. This muscle memory is what allows people to operate vehicles without thinking too much about it, which will reduce the workload of your brain, thus, it’ll improve how you react in specific situations and this is exactly what will allow you to avoid making mistakes and finding yourself in dangerous situations.
7. Better Feedback For The Trainee
Traditional training can provide trainees with some level of feedback, however, it cannot be compared with the high-quality feedback that they can get from a simulator. For starters, it’ll allow people to train in different situations created by augmented reality, images, sounds, videos, and symbols, all of which will provide people with creative feedback such as being able to see the mistake they’ve made from several angles.
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Additionally, it can also make the entire learning process faster, mostly because a simulator will remove a wide range of barriers including language and educational background barriers. Because of this, the individuals’ training will be capable of learning from their mistakes, which is something that is incredibly important, especially if the mistakes they’ve made can cause a lot of damage in real-world scenarios.
8. It Displays Scores
Last on this particular list, but definitely important as well as the rest of the pros we mentioned is the fact that a simulator will display scores after each scenario, which means that people can repeat the same situation until they’re satisfied with their results. Also, it’ll display objectives – for instance, to reach a specific location in the simulation by following specific directions – which can encourage people to do better during the training process.
Conclusion
Although driving simulators have been around for quite some time, they only recently became increasingly popular thanks to the recognition of all the aforementioned benefits. And, since it can provide trainees with so many advantages, it’s pretty safe to say that such simulators might be the future of driver training.
By now, you probably understand that driving simulators are the future of driver training and if so, you might not want to lose any more of your time reading articles such as this one. Instead, you might want to start looking for a driving school that’ll allow you to use a simulator so that you can practice without suffering the consequences of your actions.
