What driving simulators can help a teenager drive in big cities with much traffic?
My 19 y.o. daughter has had her driver's license for 2 years, but still dreads driving in urban cities like San Francisco or New York. Her driving instructor says this dread is common, and recommended a driver simulator (like how the computer game Microsoft Flight Simulator can help with learning flying), but doesn't know any recent simulators. He brought up the Midtown Madness computer games, but they're outdated.
We tried American Truck Simulator but it's not designed for city driving:
I realise we cant have GTA V levels of detail to the cities in this game but when Los Angeles and San Francisco consists of like 10 streets it breaks immersion.
The software must be run on a Windows laptop. We'll buy her a PC Steering Wheel & Pedals.
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While other answers focus on the driving skills side of this problem, I might instead recommend visiting a therapist to treat her fear. Two years of experience should have been enough to establish basic driving skills, but the fear means that driving alone probably won't help.
A skilled therapist will be able to find the underlying reasons behind her fear and treat the problem instead of its symptoms.
I'm a grown man driving for about 15 years now and I still dread driving in large cities like San Francisco or New York. I mean pedestrians jump out of no where. Why so many one way streets and aggressive drivers? There is very limited parking and 95% of it is parallel parking. Curb your wheels on hills in San Francisco or you risk your car rolling away.
I don't think a driving simulation will help. Real driving practice will, but even grown adults tend to avoid driving in large congested cities. It requires more skill and experience to do it well. I would cut your daughter some slack and slowly work up to do real practice in large cities during off-peak hours (i.e. not rush hours).
"City Car Driving" Home Edition by Forward Development, Ltd., published by Forward Global Group, Ltd.
It is available on Steam, currently for . City Car Driving supports steering wheel, pedals, manual transmission stick shifter, and VR headsets.
I am having my 16 child spend hours in this simulator before we hit the parking lot. I'm doing it for the same reason pilots, astronauts, and ship crew spend hours in simulators: it's a way to get familiar with the basics before you get in something intimidating, expensive, and dangerous.
But the nicest parenting win is that a simulator removes the parent-child dynamic from the messiest part of beginning driving. No one is there to see the early stalls, grinds, and driving into ditches. It's the PC that evaluates performance, and permits advancement.
I intend to let my child enjoy my 1960 Triumph TR3, but not before the basics of steering and shifting are mastered.
I'd shoot that down right quick.
If she wants to learn how to drive in a major city like SF or NY then she should get used to moving 15 miles per hour and master parallel parking. There's not a whole lot more to it than that unless she has a manual transmission car.
I learned to drive in SF, and I lived there 8 years as a driver. Typically I didn't drive because in major cities cars aren't as necessary but that's probably beside the point. Everything moves slower there as far as cars go. The lights are not timed so that 35 miles per hour will send you through green lights for miles at a time. No, they are timed to stop you every few blocks because otherwise traffic would explode.
Most of the streets will alternate between one way this way and one way that way. You get used to it, and it improves traffic flow. You'll still be moving slowly, but just with a few more signs to deal with.
Other drivers aren't as scary as some may suggest. There's a lot of tight merging because it's sort of like a slow motion game of opportunity there. If you need left, throw your blinker on and move when you have the chance. Other drivers expect this, so should she, and they slow down and you get in. That part can seem spooky at first, but eventually you see the efficiency of it and become that driver as well.
All of this is a generalization that suggests city driving is not that hard or scary and by no means can a driving simulator prepare you for it. Even if you had 600 hours of a VR driving instruction game, it's still just some fakeness and the brain will still go into panic when it comes time to put you to a real test. So just skip the preparations in some digital form. Practice driving locally. Deliberately get into traffic jams and drive around downtown where the streets may have one way designations that will better simulate a major city in all parts. Park a lot. Parallel only. Master that.
Lastly don't forget this fact: The signs say speed limit, not speed minimum. She can always slow down. Other cars will move around her. That goes for the freeway as well. Yeah, a slow moving driver can be more dangerous than a fast one, but often in major cities the highway structure is so complex that highway traffic isnt much faster (and often slower) than the streets. All depending on the time of day of course, but you'll feel that one out as well.
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