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Driving instructor is telling my mom to actively use the car's rear camera to parallel park, does that sound acceptable? (self.ontario)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Chatotorix to c/[email protected]

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DriveTest.ca website even says the camera shouldn't be used for assisting, but this guy seems to want her to look at the tracing drawn by the rear camera to calculate the positioning and the turns she's supposed to make. That sounds crazy to me. Should she look for another instructor? She was recommended this one by colleagues in her ESL school. This is for the G2 road test by the way.

Edit: I get that it's useful to have the camera, but I guess what you are missing is that she's not learning how to do it, she knows, she wants to know how to do it in the way the G2 tester expects her to do it.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know what DriveTest says, and I'm sure some or all of the testers follow that rule, but frankly, it's pretty dumb. Many vehicles are built in a way where it is incredibly unsafe to back up without using the camera. It's one of many reasons why they've been legally required in all new vehicles for more than 5 years. DriveTest seriously needs to modernize their testing criteria.

This instructor is teaching your mom how to drive, not how to pass the road test. I personally think that's (mostly) a good thing, but you should probably talk to the driving instructor about this discrepancy.

[–] Chatotorix 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I thought that in the best case scenario the dude was just trying to get her to do the parallel parking, but honestly, if in the test she's not supposed to use the camera (and I've read many people saying some testers even put their clipboards over it), why would he use this shortcut with her?

Thanks for your input.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It's not a shortcut. It's the proper way to park. Just like power steering and braking are just part of the way we drive nowadays. Imagine if the testers made you turn off power steering for the test. It would be pretty stupid, because even though it's technically possible, cars with power steering are not designed to be driven without it.

Your mom is probably going to have to learn to park without the camera. It's not correct, it's not good, but it is what it is. But everyone who insists that cameras are just a crutch and that back in their day they "drove backwards uphill to school both ways in the snow with their eyes closed" will be lucky if they never hit someone or something while backing up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Because when you are learning to ride a bike you have training wheels.