Nine out of 10 driving instructors say learners picked up bad driving habits from their parents during the pandemic.

A survey of instructors by Young Driver, the UK’s largest pre-17 driving school, revealed the Top 10 worst habits picked up by learners from their parents:

1. Not following ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ as a matter of course
2. Steering with one hand (palm) or crossing hands. Neither will fail you your test as a one off, but it isn’t best practice to do them regularly as you have less control.
3. Not observing what is happening around them
4. Coasting
5. Speeding
6. Coming down through individual gears instead of block changing
7. Not creeping and peeping when exiting a junction
8. Riding the clutch
9. Impatience/aggression
10. Believing myths or out of date driving styles (eg, you no longer need to hold the steering wheel in the 10-2 position, you don’t have to stop at all junctions and roundabouts and overuse of indicators can be frowned upon)

Others mentioned by instructors included eating and drinking in the car, being too heavy on the gas, not checking blind spots, getting too close to the vehicle in front and having no regard or understanding of the highway code.