Planning Alaska Behind the Wheel Practice with Your Teen

Before you start: what counts as challenging

Form D1's parent certification asks you to confirm 40 or more hours of driving, including 10 or more in progressively challenging circumstances. Alaska does not define which conditions qualify, so your family decides.

You will not run short of options here. Black ice, packed snow, freezing rain, long winter darkness, frost heaves, gravel highways and animals near the shoulder all count. For a teen from a small town, rush hour in Fairbanks or Anchorage counts too.

A worked example: if your teen's permit starts in August, the first two months can be daytime basics, and November through February can supply most of the 10 harder hours, since darkness arrives before dinner.

Every drive: who can sit beside your teen

The person in the front passenger seat needs a valid license, must be at least 21, and must have driven that same type of vehicle for a year or more. They stay in that seat for the whole drive.

It does not have to be you. An older sibling over 21, a grandparent or a family friend can supervise practice. The D1 certification of the 40 hours, though, has to come from you or another authorized signer.

If you are deciding on driving school

Alaska sets no classroom hours and no professional in car hours for teens. Plenty of parents still buy a short package, since a professional with a brake pedal of their own notices habits a parent may miss.

DMV publishes licensed schools by region and license type. Class D schools are listed in Anchorage, Eagle River, Bethel, Juneau, the Fairbanks and North Pole area, the Mat Su Borough and the Kenai Peninsula. Choose from that list, not from ads.

Getting ready for the road test

According to DMV, the examiner scores how your teen uses the car's controls, turns left and right, parks parallel, reverses, makes a sudden stop, changes lanes, gets on and off the freeway, completes a three point turn, and handles signals, speed, following distance, intersections and stop signs.

A backup camera or parking sensor is allowed only as an aid. DMV expects proper head position and mirror use regardless, so teach your teen to back up and parallel park looking over the shoulder, not at the screen.

• Coned parallel parking box: 10 feet by 30 feet
• A quarter tank of fuel or more for the 30 minute drive
• No passengers or pets in the car
• Phone switched off throughout

Before test day: the car itself

Your practice car will probably be your test car, so fix things early. DMV checks for working lights with real lenses, a windshield free of cracks in the line of sight, wipers and defroster, decent tires, a working horn, functioning brakes including the parking brake, and a seat belt for you and for the examiner.

Practicing on studs in winter is fine. Testing on them is not, during the part of the year when studs are banned. And because Alaska and Anchorage both prohibit aftermarket tint, strip it off before the appointment.

If something goes wrong: keeping the record clean

Before a provisional license your teen needs six months free of traffic convictions, suspensions and revocations. One ticket during the permit restarts that count.

The stakes climb after licensing. Reaching 6 points within a year, or 9 within two, forces a provisional driver into a defensive driving course. Violating the curfew or the passenger rule is itself an infraction: $200 and 2 points.