E 235 Driving School Secrets for Nervous New Drivers

🚗 Driving Anxiety SOLVED: Expert Reveals How Teens Can Become Confident Drivers! 🚦

Are you a parent struggling with a teen who's terrified of driving? Or a young driver feeling overwhelmed by the thought of getting behind the wheel? This episode is your ultimate guide!
In this eye-opening conversation, I sit down with Nigel Tunnacliffe, CEO of Coastline Academy - the #1 driving school transforming teen driving education across America.

📍 What You'll Learn:

Why driving anxiety is actually a GOOD thing
Proven strategies to build teen driving confidence
How parents can support nervous new drivers
The surprising truth about teen driving trends
Professional tips for safe driving education

🎁 BONUS: Free Download - "9 Steps to Getting Your New Driver Safely Behind the Wheel"


Key Moments:
0:00 Introduction
3:45 Understanding Teen Driving Anxiety
7:22 Parent's Role in Driver Education
12:10 Customized Learning Approaches
16:30 Building Confidence Behind the Wheel

🔔 Subscribe for more expert parenting and teen mental health insights!

📞 Connect with Coastline Academy:
Website
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 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Text me: 785-380-2064
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Transcript

Hi, everyone. I am so glad you're joining me today for the teen anxiety maze. And today I have a guest and we're going to talk about a topic that we haven't talked about yet. And I am so excited because my clients, a lot of them have a fear of driving. So we're going to talk about that today because.

It's an important thing that we need to be able to do in our lives. And I'm just seeing more and more young people that are really worried about it. So that is our topic today. So today I have Nigel Tunnacliffe with me and he is the CEO and co founder of Coastline Academy. It is the largest driving school in the country and the sixth fastest growing education company in America.

According to Inc. com, a passionate advocate for education and driver safety, Nigel founded Coastline with the mission of eradicating car crashes by teaching safe and confident drivers for life. [00:01:00] Since its founding, Coastline has provided top quality education to over 250, 000 driving students across. 500 plus cities receiving five star ratings from 98 percent of their reviewers.

So that is amazing. Well, Nigel, thank you for being with us. 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Thanks so much for having me. 

Cynthia: Sure. Well, first of all I, I raised two teenagers. Well, really. Three, and the driving thing, they wanted to drive. None of them were worried about driving. I was worried about their driving because I didn't want to ride with them while they were learning to drive.

It totally freaked me out. I finally just said, you have to, they had driver's education as part of school. So I said, you need to learn to drive with that instructor. And then once you've got the.

And so one of the [00:02:00] things that you can talk to us about is how do we know that our teen is ready to be driving? 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, it's a great question. It's different for every family and for every teenager. But I think you're ready to drive just a little bit sooner than you think you're ready to drive.

Because it is something that takes a while and the moment that you say you're ready, well, actually now you've, you've, you've got to start a fairly long process. It starts with just learning the theory behind driving and then practicing for your permit test. And then you take your permit test and then you get your permit.

And so you should kind of think about, okay, if I'm going to be ready to drive, start driving in six months or a year, now's the time to start actually working through that process. 

But I think there's some other signs as well. As parents, you know, we really want to see a certain level of responsibility.

Driving is a, it's a huge [00:03:00] responsibility and we want to make sure that our kids are ready to kind of take it as seriously as it is. And and it is a, it does take some work. So sort of being having a period of time where. And, you know, I can dedicate a day a week to this to taking lessons, practicing for the test, practicing driving, all these kinds of things.

But all in all, you know, I think that the majority of teenagers are still getting their license when they're 16 or 15 and a half, depending on the state. And that's a, that's a pretty good time for most people. 

Cynthia: Well, that was the next question I was going to ask, and maybe you answered this a little bit.

But what can parents do to help their teen get ready to be a driver? 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, well, the first thing to do as a parent is examine your own driving. This starts when your kids are 5 or 10 or 13. It shouldn't start when they're 15 and a half about to learn to drive. Modeling [00:04:00] that good driving behavior is, is paramount.

You are who your kids are going to learn from, right? We as driving instructors can come in for 6 hours or 10 hours and provide some skills. Your teen is going to have a lifetime of observing, driving up close. And whether you're using your phone or you know, having, having engaged conversations with a, with a lack of focus or you know, kind of yelling at other cars, you know, within your little bubble, you know, these are things that people do and it's, it's totally okay.

It's totally like, it's totally natural, but when we've got kids who we know are going to be modeling this behavior starting there. And just demonstrating what, what good driving looks like. 

Cynthia: Mm hmm. Oh, I bet that is. Well, and I feel like I always was modeling good driving behavior, but then I was afraid that they [00:05:00] wouldn't, they, it seemed like they had a different agenda about driving than I did, you know, like showing off or, you know, Not realizing how much they had to pay attention to what everyone else is doing because they're learning and they don't know that like when I'm driving, I might look like I'm just looking ahead, but I'm always looking at what's this car doing?

What's this car doing? You know, I'm, I'm looking at all sorts of things and they probably don't know that. But maybe talking about that. As you're driving as they get older saying, Oh, see how I'm looking over here. I remember one time I was needing to turn my daughter and I were going to like a dance practice or something.

And we were on the highway going to turn into this Driving this dance studio, and I could see in my rear view mirror that the car coming behind me was going full speed, like they didn't see that I was stopped and that I was going to turn. And so I then [00:06:00] went forward and went to the next block and went around and I, I'm pretty sure I probably said to her because she was getting towards driving time, you know, this person's not going to stop.

So I'm going to keep going. Because they're going to hit us and so maybe that kind of stuff too, like talking about what's happening in the car, what you're doing would be helpful to them. 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's lots of those little teachable moments that you can start bringing in you know, well before the formal driving education starts.


I think the most important one though, to model as a parent and to make it really clear that you're modeling as a parent. Is, is using a device because if you've got a, you know if you get a message and it's important or you're, you know, you missed your exit and you've got to change something on Google maps or whatever it's such a great teachable moment to say, oh, I got a text.

I really need to get back to that person. I'm going to find a place here where I can pull [00:07:00] over and I'm going to message them back 

Cynthia: and those 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: little things, you know, that they, they have an effect, they will, you know, we can do everything that we can to say, don't use your phone in the car, right? It's the number one cause of collisions.

But, you know, you just hear it like you hear a lot of things, but if you see your parents taking it really seriously, I think that can, that can really have an effect on the learning process. 

Cynthia: Yes, I can't even imagine. When my kids were learning to drive, that wasn't a thing, and so I'm so glad that I didn't have to deal with that, but I watch them now.

Sometimes I ride with them somewhere, and I'm like, you shouldn't be touching your phone, but then they're adults, so I'm like, okay, I'll just sit here. Well, one of the things that I mentioned at the beginning is that a lot of my clients are anxious about driving, like, and when this first phenomenon started happening and kids were telling me they were too afraid or parents would tell me my child's too afraid to [00:08:00] get their driver's license, I couldn't even understand it because I thought that was the first thing that I wanted to do.

Signaled and in my generation that signaled adulthood or freedom or, you know, all those things that we want when we're a teenager, and I couldn't even understand why a teenager wouldn't want this freedom and this almost adulthood. So what are you seeing? And what do you think the reasons behind that are?

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, so we do hear about this anecdotally, right? That, oh, kids are waiting longer and they don't care about it as much and whatnot. The data shows, though, that still the majority of teenagers still get their license when they're 16 or 17. It's about two thirds or so. That's down from maybe 75%.

So there is a slight, a slight decrease. But then all those people who don't get their license when they're 16 or 17, they're going to get it when they're 18 or 20 or 22. And guess what? It's a whole [00:09:00] lot harder to learn to drive when you're 22 because you're probably living alone. Maybe you're in college or you live in another state and you don't have access to your family's car to practice.

You don't have access to mom or dad to, to go out with you and teach you alongside your, your professional driving school. And so that just makes the whole process so much harder. So we really encourage people and say, this is the easiest time to learn to drive you will ever have in your whole life.

Is when you're still in high school, living at home, mom and dad to help, 

So, so that's, that's one thing that, that we see for sure. You also asked about, you know, why folks are, are waiting a little bit longer, you know, one is, is access to transportation, you know, Uber makes it easier to get from place to place and, you know, without that sort of.

pain to motivate you to say, I really want my license because otherwise I'm stuck at home. It's just harder [00:10:00] to have that motivation. Because this is not an easy thing to do. You know, if you, if you look at all of the things that young people learn to do they almost all predate the teenage years. 

Cynthia: If 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: you're going to be a varsity you know athlete, you probably didn't pick up your sport when you were 15 and a half years old.

You were probably playing. Volleyball or touch football or soccer or whatever it is when you're seven or nine or eleven. So here we are learning a challenging and dangerous new skill as a teenager. And I think that's rare. And so I think it's, it's, it's important to recognize that, that this is not easy.

It's not easy for the new driver. It's not easy for the parents. 

And sort of embracing the fact that it's. challenging and something that we all need to work together at, I think can help kind of acknowledge the feelings of the, of the young person learning to drive and [00:11:00] also be able to have a, a good conversation about, you know, when the time is and what support they need.

Cynthia: I love that. Well, in the bio, it mentioned that you really want to eradicate car crashes. And I love that because that is still one of my biggest fears for my own self, but also for my kids. And now I have three grandkids and they're certainly not anywhere near driving, but I know I'll just be just as panicked about them driving around when the time comes and I live in a more rural area.

So. We don't have access to a lot of public transportation. Like you have to learn to drive or you can't go anywhere. So kids are learning pretty early so that they can get to things. But how, what is it that you're doing that kind of helps? Is it just because how you're educating kids to drive is helping the car crash statistics or data?

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's our goal is that we can bring a level of [00:12:00] professionalism and a standard to an industry that has kind of a mixed level of, of providers. If you live in a town with a great driving school. Great. You're probably going to get an excellent driving education and your son or daughter is going to be well equipped.

There are other folks who are not so lucky. They live in a place where there's a driving school that has more of a casual nature to the, the learning to drive process. And so what we're, what we're trying to do is, is. Elevate the standard and bring our high standard of education everywhere in the country.

Because, you know, this is there's a lot of important decisions that we have to make as parents. But this is the one that actually carries the most risk for for your son or daughter. So we take that really, really seriously. 

Cynthia: Yeah. Well you have a, a freebie to offer the audience called nine steps to getting your new driver safely behind the wheel.

And [00:13:00] so parents will want to definitely download that so they have access to that. But what are some things that you, what would you like parents to really know about in, in this discussion about driving? 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, well, I think you know, we're talking about anxiety here 

Cynthia: and, 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: This is a time where learning to drive can create a lot of anxiety.

And so I think it's important to first recognize that this is actually a good thing, right? This is you know, this is our brain telling us, be careful. 

Cynthia: This 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: is dangerous. I don't like this. I'm not comfortable. 

Cynthia: And, 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: I would much rather be helping an anxious driver learn to drive. Slowly and carefully and building up layer by layer that an overconfident teen that we need to try to pull back.

Cynthia: And 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: so you know, as parents and, and as, as teens learning to drive with anxiety, I think it's, it's [00:14:00] important to say that, hey, sometimes anxiety can pop up in our lives and in places that we don't want it. Here is one where this is our brain working properly. Let's just take this really seriously and put in the extra work to build these skills slowly and carefully.

And as parents to approach this with the level of seriousness that we should be approaching any dangerous new skill. 

Cynthia: Is, like, is the lessons, are they customized in a way, like you're saying somebody goes slow because they're really anxious, and then another person you're having to say, let's slow down here and let's do these different things, so when they're you.

When they work with your school, they kind of get what they need to be a safe driver. 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, exactly. You know, each of our lessons are one instructor and a student who's driving and we can take that that student through at the pace that's right for them. We're not following [00:15:00] some formulaic Do this, then that on hour 4, we're driving on the freeway and, you know, yada, yada, yada some some new drivers pick it up really quickly.

Maybe they have some driving experience because they you know, help out the farm or they. Play a lot of video games or whatever it is that means that they kind of comparable skills that helps them progress others. It takes a lot longer and that's totally okay. You know, we, we just go at the pace.

That's right for them. And with with our, our anxious drivers we just, we, we make sure that we're building and reinforcing core skills to the point where there's. A feeling of mastery before we move on and layer on additional skills because that feeling of mastery builds confidence. And that confidence can enable that student to, to then be open to learning the next skill.

Whereas if we followed [00:16:00] some formula that was okay, at the 30 minute mark in our first lesson, we need to be doing X, you know, there's some folks are just not going to be ready for that and it'll be overwhelming. 

Cynthia: Yes, that totally makes sense. And I hadn't really thought about that before. In in driving education.

Now your company's called Coastline and you have 500 plus cities. So are you more on the coast sides? Because I'm in Kansas in the middle. Now, my listeners are all over the world and some not even in the United States. But do you have any schools near Kansas? 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: So we, we started in California on the coast in, in Monterey and the Bay Area.

But now we're in eight states. We're not in, in Kansas, but we're in Missouri. So we're, we're next door and we're, we're in some other Midwestern states as well. Illinois and Indiana, and we're, we're expanding quickly, but we're on. We're on both coasts and the South Coast. So we're sort of filling in state by state because every state has, has different laws around [00:17:00] driving education and such.

But the name comes from our, our origins, not our. Where you are, well, 

Cynthia: that's what I was kind of thinking. Like when you started it, you were like, Oh, we're on the coast and we're starting this. But then now it's just expanded all around. And I find that most of the people I talk to that, whatever, whatever we're talking about, it's not in Kansas.

So, and I think it's just because Kansas gets forgotten about a lot. And I'm not saying that we're any, you know, so exciting that people should be here, but it is, it is something that kind of we just, maybe because we're in the middle or because people just see it as a flat place, which we're not all flat, but but I just wondered if any of the people that are in this area would be able to find one of your schools, but we're close.

I mean, I'm in Topeka, so we're not too far away from Missouri, but I don't, I don't know [00:18:00] where in Missouri. You know, Kansas City is pretty close, but 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: I think you can find a great driving school almost anywhere. 

Cynthia: And I 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: think the, the important thing is that you're asking the right questions. What is, what is the process?

My son or daughter is like fill in the blank. How, how can you help them? And you know, their, their views can tell a lot of the story. And so, you know, I think the, the main thing is, you know, we want to support creating safe and confident drivers for life, and we're not going to teach every single new driver out there.

We never could want to make sure that people know how to approach this even if you're not in an area that we operate, we have tons of useful information on our website. About the learning to drive process and how to build these skills and whatnot. So we want to be a resource to people wherever they are.

Cynthia: That is wonderful. And I will put all of that stuff in the show notes. So they'll be able to find your [00:19:00] website and the resources and information that you have. Is there anything else you want to leave us with today that parents need to know, or maybe teens need to know? I also have teen listeners to this podcast.

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Yeah, so for the teen listeners, you can do this. I've had so many people come and take lessons with me. And I know this is a case with, with our instructors as well. And they come and they say, I don't know if I'm ever going to be a driver. I don't know if I can do this. Like, I'm not good at this kind of thing.

Whatever it is. And, guess what? They all become drivers. It's, it's, it's something that you just need to do it at the pace that's right for you. With the skills and the support that you need from your parents practicing with you at a, at the right pace with a professional instructor that can, that can work with you and help build up these skills 1 at a time until, until you attain that, that level of confidence and competence.

So we, [00:20:00] we we get all kinds of students coming to us, all ages from the 15 year old to the 95 year old folks with, with different strengths and different skills that are coming into it or, or different worries and you can do this. 

Cynthia: Well, is there anything like if a is there any time where you're like, I don't think this person should be driving I mean, is there do you let parents know that or how you know?

I think that would be a hard conversation to have have you ever had that where you're like, oh, this is not a good situation 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Well, we do have conversations with all of our families to let their, let them know where their student is at, where their new driver is at. And some of those conversations are, you know, the state minimum for learning to drive is 6 hours of professional driving education.

We're at the end of those 6 hours and here's the skills that we've gotten so [00:21:00] far. It's going to take a lot more time, you know. We we don't recommend that they go and take their test next week. Let's continue to work on these skills here. The things that, you know, we all should be worried about, you know, working on and whatnot.

But we don't we don't say, okay, you shouldn't be a driver. I think I think this is something that, that everybody can learn to do, but not everybody can do it in a 6 month time period with 

Cynthia: 6 hours 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: of driving lessons. And you know, It's it's it's not just 50 hours of practice time with parents.

It's sometimes we have to take a couple of steps back, you know, and rebuild skills and whatnot. So but I, I believe everybody can get there. Yeah. With the right process. 

Cynthia: I love that idea that. You know, we do get in our mind that, well, the state says this ours. And so that's it. But sometimes people are going to take longer than that, and that's okay.

And we just want them to be safe. And we just want things to, to work [00:22:00] out probably nothing. Well, you mentioned that you sometimes have 95 year olds. I, my mom will be 91 in. March, but my sister and I both are like, you know, when, when do we say you don't drive anymore? Like we're trying to figure that out and so far she lives in a really small town that my sister and I grew up in and everyone knows Who she is and who we are and so I just told her because, you know, she was concerned about it when she got her driver's license this last time and she, you know, they don't retest you unless you let it lapse.

And so she still has her driver's license and it's fine. But I said, well, mom, I know that if you are driving in a. Radic way or being dangerous or hitting people. They're going to call us and then we'll know whether we should take the keys away. And so I think she's just super careful now, but 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: yeah, you know, we have some families.

With with elderly parents come to us and, and sign them up for a driving lesson [00:23:00] 

Cynthia: so that 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: then the family can have some objective information about where that elderly driver is at with their skills, with their the flexibility to, to look around as they're driving, you know, all these kinds of things that.

Kind of get harder as we get older. 


And that feedback is helpful for families to have that conversation and make that decision as a family. We also sometimes help just, you know, middle age drivers who have been driving for 20 or 30 years. Maybe you, you get in a car crash and all of a sudden now you're really worried about driving, you think, okay, someone's going to come out of nowhere and hit me again.

And I, now, all of a sudden, I'm, you know, I've got all this anxiety every time I get behind the wheel, 

Cynthia: sometimes 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: a couple of hours with a driving instructor going through building that confidence backup is just what it takes to say, okay, I've got this. You know, and and hey, actually, you know, I never knew you were supposed to do that.

You know and now that, you know, I've got this, this [00:24:00] new skill set, I can keep myself and my family that much safer when I'm behind the wheel. 

Cynthia: Yeah. I love that so much. That's so great. Yeah. I could see where you could build up your confidence after having, cause I know it would be hard to get back in the car after a bad accident and and.

That could be, or even if a child probably experienced a bad accident, maybe that would be the reason why they didn't want to drive themselves. So, well, that is wonderful. And I am so glad that we got to have this talk because again, this is not something that I'd even really thought about having an episode about, so I'm so glad that you reached out to, to be on the show.

And I will make sure all your information is out there for people to get your freebie and also to just see where your driving schools are and see your resources. 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoy talking about this topic and helping folks in their driving journey.

Cynthia: Sure. Well, we need safe driving, so I'm glad you're out there. [00:25:00] 

Nigel Tunnacliffe: All right. Thank you.