Buying your first car is a unique experience. Make sure you make it a happy one!

While buying a car at any time in your life is a major purchase that should be made thoughtfully, the process requires additional due diligence and finesse when you’re purchasing your very first car.  The whole process of buying your first car should be exciting; you don’t want to feel pressured, confused, or regretful in your selection. Following these four simple tips will help ensure the first car you buy will be a decision with which you are happy!

Identify Purpose

While there will always be lots of distinctly diverse and sharp new and used vehicles for sale, not all of them will meet your particular needs. Before you select your first car, first identify how you plan to use it. Perhaps you want to buy your first vehicle because you just landed a job that requires extensive travel, so you’ll need a dependable vehicle that can handle lots of miles. Maybe you need a reliable car for university. Possibly you’ve been saving up for your first vehicle and now you are ready to make that investment and you simply want a car to get you around town without having to walk, take public transportation, or count on others to drive you. Whatever your reasons for buying your first car, take them into consideration so that the vehicle you choose will meet your needs. You won’t need that sleek, gas-guzzling truck if you’re planning to save on fuel expenses. You won’t feel comfortable in a tiny little two-seater if you want to include your dog and your friends on your road trips. Decide before you search how you plan to enjoy your vehicle most of the time!

Identify “Must Haves”

Whether your “must haves” include exceptional fuel efficiency and a sunroof, or include a state-of-the-art navigation system, and lots of storage space, decide ahead of time what you absolutely want in your first vehicle. This way, when you start shopping you won’t be distracted by all the bells and whistles you don’t really need or want. Just because the dealership happens to have your dream car ~ minus the sunroof ~ on their lot today doesn’t mean you should buy that car today; select the car you want with the features you want. If you stick to your list, you won’t have regrets for compromising when you get your car home.

Identify Budget

Calculate your monthly expenses, including rent, utilities, entertainment, food, and/or any other categories that may apply to you. Then figure out how much you can afford to pay for a vehicle each month; this amount not only encompasses the actual payment to the finance company, but also your car’s fuel, oil changes, unexpected repairs, and regular maintenance upkeep for your vehicle.  If you don’t identify your budget before you shop for your first car, you can easily fall into the mistake of choosing a vehicle out of your budget; if this happens, you’ll find yourself struggling to make ends meet and having to give up other things in life you enjoy simply to make that monthly payment.

Identify Seller

There’s a big difference between purchasing your first car from a private seller and an established auto dealer. The risks involved in buying directly from the previous car owner are high. A reputable auto dealership will offer you warranties, have a service department to take your vehicle to for routine maintenance, and will be a “go to” place should you have any questions or concerns. If you buy your first vehicle from a stranger on the street, there’s no guarantee of anything once you drive away.

Driving may be seen as a right of passage, but it requires years before it’s mastered.

Learning to drive is an activity that, like any other, requires practice to master. Although many drivers began learning during their teenage years, many more years of repetitive driving often pass before the skills become committed to your procedural memory, the portion of long-term memory (LTM) dedicated to storing information. Procedural Memory helps in using your mind and body to successfully carry out the “procedures” required to complete a task, such as driving a vehicle.

Developing Your Procedural Memory To Drive is a Three Stage Process

When a person begins the learning process to become a safe driver, a three-step process occurs before the skills become semi-automatic. These stages are:

The cognitive phase

Where the skills required are learned one by one. With driving, this includes tasks such as learning the meaning of signs and the rules of the road, as well as developing muscle memory. Muscle memory allows your body to quickly react to situations as needed to effectively operate a vehicle.

The associative phase

Where beginning skills are repeated until they become automated. This is also the phase where ineffectual patterns and/or skills are eliminated as your LTM writes a procedural program that has been shown (through practice) to be effective.

The autonomous phase

Where the acquired skill patterns are perfected over time. If you are middle aged, for example, you are likely to be a safer driver than you were as a teenager, even though you apply less conscious thought to the process.

Sleeping Soon After Practicing Shortens the Learning Process

Studies clearly show that when a person experiences REM sleep soon after practicing a complex new skill, the skill will be remembered more rapidly than if the same person completes a lesson without allowing the brain sufficient sleep time to integrate the skills into the long term procedural memory bank.

Adults helping youngsters learn to drive can reduce the number of driving lessons needed by encouraging their students to sleep soon afterwards, allowing new skills to “stick” to memory more easily.

Factors that Affect Procedural Memory and Driving Abilities

While we are all aware that drinking and driving is a dangerous combination, understanding how external factors (including alcohol and drug use) affect your procedural memory can help explain why driving abilities change in response to different situations.

Since dopamine is a significant neuromodulator involved with procedural memory, any drug and/or disease, which affects dopamine levels will alter your ability to drive a vehicle. In the case of alcohol and the majority of recreational drug use, your ability to drive will be seriously compromised no matter how long you have been practicing your skills.

A number of mental and physical illnesses have also been shown to alter the ability to access procedural memories. Alzheimer patients and those suffering from untreated schizophrenia may reach a point where they are no longer able to drive at all, while other individuals, such as those with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), actually experience an improvement in their procedural memory.

Pay Attention to the Road to Keep Everyone Safer

Unfortunately, some drivers become so habitualised to the task at hand that little conscious thought is applied when driving. To stay safe in your vehicle, as well as to protect others on the road, a certain degree of conscious attention is required regardless of how long you have been driving. Being able to trust that your procedural memory will kick in and help you hit the brakes when you need to is great, but is not a license to treat the task of driving as anything less than the serious endeavour that it is.