Your teen's first 10 practice hours: a plan for Columbus parents

Before a teen in Ohio takes the driving test, the BMV asks for 50 hours of supervised practice, at least 10 of them at night, on top of the 24-hour class and the 8 hours with a licensed instructor. The paperwork is in our 50-hour affidavit guide. This note is about the driving itself: the first ten hours, which set the habits for the other forty.

You do not need a special car or a special place. You need a quiet start, one new thing per drive, and a log you fill in the same day.

Before the first hour

Check who may sit beside your teen. Under 16, the BMV requires a parent, guardian or licensed driving instructor in the passenger seat. From 16, any licensed driver over 21 may supervise, except between midnight and 6 a.m., when it is a parent, guardian or custodian (or an adult named on a notarized BMV 2438). The permit guide has the full list.

• The permit (the TIPIC) rides in the car on every drive. Ohio requires the driver to carry it.
• Everyone wears a seat belt, you included.
• The phone goes away before the engine starts. A driver under 18 may not use an electronic device in any manner while driving (Ohio Revised Code 4511.205), and your own phone is a distraction for both of you.
• Decide how you will log hours: the paper BMV 5791 or the state's RoadReady Ohio app. Pick one and stick with it.

Hours 1 to 3: an empty lot

Start where nothing is in a hurry: a large lot on a Sunday morning, before the stores open. The goal of the first hour is not to go anywhere. It is to learn how the car answers the pedals and the wheel.

• Seat, mirrors and belt before the key, every time, until it is boring.
• Pull away and stop, ten times. The Ohio Driver Manual's recipe for a stop is simple: check the mirror, move the foot from the gas to the brake, press with steady pressure until the car stops. Our tip on top of it: ease off just before the car stops and the stop is smooth.
• Turn left and right around the light poles, slowly, hands steady on the wheel.
• Back up in a straight line between two parking lines. Head turned, foot light. Backing straight is on the driving test, so it is worth starting now.

Three short drives beat one long one. Stop while it is still going well.

Hours 4 to 7: streets you both know

Move to the residential streets around your home, at times with little traffic. Here the work is intersections.

• Stop signs: stop behind the stop line or the crosswalk, then look left, right and left again before moving.
• Right turns first, for a few drives. Left turns across traffic come once the right turns are calm.
• Speed: residential streets have low limits, and a reasonable speed can be lower than the sign in rain or at dusk.
• Following distance: three to four seconds behind the car ahead. Count it off a fixed point.
• Pedestrians at crosswalks have the right of way. Say what you see: the walker at the corner, the ball near the curb, the brake lights two cars ahead.

Hours 8 to 10: a little more road

By the eighth hour most teens are ready for a two-lane road with a 35 or 45 mph limit, a traffic light or two, and the first lane change: mirror, shoulder check, signal, look again, move, cancel the signal.

Use one of these hours at dusk. Headlights are on between sunset and sunrise, high beams only with nobody coming toward you, and on an unlit road you look toward the right edge when a car's lights bother you (manual, section 7). Ten of the fifty hours must be at night, and the first night drive is easier on a road your teen already knows in daylight.

This is also a good time for the first lesson with our instructor, if it has not happened yet. In our teen drivers ed course the instructor picks your teen up at home or school in our pickup areas, and we confirm the address when you book. What the instructor covers in two hours gives you a list for your next practice.

How to log it

Each session goes in the Supervised Driving Log on the BMV 5791, one line per drive. The supervising adult signs the affidavit and, for a driver under 21, has the signature notarized (OTSO's under-21 driver training page); the completed form goes to the test appointment. The RoadReady Ohio app, which OTSO's teach your teen to drive page points parents to, logs the same hours from your phone.

Write the log the same day. Two months later nobody remembers which Tuesday it rained.

Where this comes from

Every rule in this note was read on the State of Ohio's own pages on November 1, 2026. If a page changes, the page wins; check it before you rely on a date or a number.

• Ohio BMV: temporary permits and driver licenses (bmv.ohio.gov)
• Ohio Traffic Safety Office: teach your teen to drive (otso.ohio.gov)
• Ohio Traffic Safety Office: under 21 driver training (otso.ohio.gov)
• Ohio Driver Manual, section 5: learning to drive (publicsafety.ohio.gov)
• Ohio Driver Manual, section 7: special driving situations (publicsafety.ohio.gov)
• Ohio Revised Code 4511.205: use of devices by persons under 18 (codes.ohio.gov)