Can you really teach yourself to drive?
In fact the question is can you teach yourself anything if you really put your mind to it.
The way driving lessons are delivered is changing, I often find though that the way people want to learn is not changing quick enough.
It took me until I was in my 30's (possibly later) to realise I was not at school to learn. In fact school was a way of facilitating the potential to learn and I should have been studying at home.
What was needed was someone to show me how I could put all the pieces together. Guide me along but allowing me to make my own choices.
I had a reasonable childhood.
I never really enjoyed school but enjoyed learning!
Today the world is at your fingers tips. (Brace yourselves I'm going to reflect on the past here). When I was in my teens you used Ceefax to search for holidays on your tv. We went to travel agents on the High Street to book holidays. You went to the library to find out information you needed in books, you didn't have Wikipedia.
If you wanted to drive anywhere past the Watford Gap service station you needed to spend 2/3 hours the night before researching the maps and places to visit.
So where has all the time gone? That's before you even get onto dial up broadband, if you were lucky to have a computer at home.
Remember we went to the video store often early on a Saturday night to check the videos you could watch later. Then you needed to return them by Monday evening.
I'm merely trying to point out that given the information you have at your fingers tips surely its easy to tap into that information and actually teach yourself to drive.
What I'm really suggesting is that you become self aware of what you actually do!
With the help of your driver trainer they should be able to self evaluate what you did and how you need to improve.
In most cases many problems can be solved by actually slowing down early.
Lets look at a simple problem and then look at a simple solution.
You approach a junction to turn left and as you enter the junction you go across the other side of the road.
This is the first time you have turned left and are not completely sure what went wrong. Thinking back you recall the approach and checking your mirrors, then signaling this was done in good time.
You remember the speed at which you turned and you now relate this to when you have driven in 2nd gear and turned a corner knowing that second gear is effective at 10/12mph so you speed was good.
This analysis has shown you that the steering was not enough which meant you didn't turn enough to achieve a safe position going into the new road.
If all the other factors match the turn you should be successful on your next attempt and have begun to teach yourself.
Its more complex than this at times and requires a lot of practice.
But next time you are driving start to look at what you did well a long with what you didn't do so well. The good parts will help you change the not so good parts.