Driving teachers meet us when we are most panicked and anxious behind the wheel. Its their job to help new and nervous drivers stay calm and alert, and although the students will change over time, the mistakes teachers often encounter will not.

After you do this job for six months, you start to know what the students are going to do before they even do it, said Mike Thomas, a driving instructor for 27 years and co-founder of AllGood Driving School in Northern California.

HuffPost asked veteran instructors about the most common errors they see year after year and how to break those bad habits. Heres what they shared:

1. They dont pay attention in traffic.

New drivers do not scan their environment enough for hazards.

Driving a car physically is not that difficult. Driving it safely is all brain work, said Steve Frank, co-owner of Pinellas Driving School in Florida and a driving instructor for almost seven years. Its all thinking, planning, anticipating.

Thomas gave the example of an inattentive driver that just drives forward through a green light while looking straight ahead, which would result in a point deduction on a driving exam.

Instead, right before you enter the intersection, you are supposed to glance in all directions. So I would look to my left quickly, look at my right, check for pedestrians as well, Thomas said.

This lack of focus is one of the most hazardous mistakes all drivers need to unlearn. Even seasoned drivers can make the mistake of zoning out or looking down at their phones. Distracted driving is dangerous, having led to the deaths of 3,308 people in 2022, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration .

Some people get behind the wheel, and they do not understand the magnitude of focus driving requires, said Ken Pupo, a driving instructor with 21 years of experience at Philadelphia Professional Driving School . Their mind is in Hawaii, and you cant do that when you drive. Theres no downtime.

2. They dont look over their shoulder before changing lanes.

Thomas said not looking over ones shoulder before a lane change is one of the most common things resulting in automatic failure on the test in California.

And unlike other mistakes that you unlearn with practice, this is an error that adults get worse at, because they just start to take it for granted, they start to think that theyre good at using their mirrors or that their car does the job for them, Thomas added.

Sensors are great, but we try and teach the kids that theyre assistants, not substitutes, Frank said. And so even though you have a car with a blind spot sensor in it, you need to turn your head and check.

Ideally, you glance over your shoulder diagonally out the back-side window and at the 20-foot spot right next to your trunk where your mirrors cannot see, Thomas said, noting that he often takes students outside of a car so they can understand how big the spot is.

3. They roll through stop signs.

The first thing weve got to do is fix all the bad things that the parent has taught the child, Frank said. And one of those mistakes is rolling through stop signs.

The proper way to stop is at the sign or the stop bar painted on the road and not past it, Frank said, adding, And then if you cant see, you inch the car forward slowly, until you can determine that its safe to go or not.

4. They tailgate.

When you tailgate or aggressively drive right behind another car, its not just bad manners it can be dangerous and cause a collision if the car in front suddenly stops. Speeding is the reason for nearly a third of all fatalities on the road, according to the NHTSA .

Tailgating is a bad habit that drivers of all experience levels make.

Some people are just chronic tailgaters. Theyre just aggressive and rude and mean, Thomas said. But I think everyone at some point has either done it or has also been a victim of it.

To avoid tailgating, you should be keeping a three-second following distance between you and the car in front of you, Thomas said. In other words, if the car in front of you passes an object or line on the road, you should be able to count to three seconds before you pass it as well.

If tailgating persists, the safest thing to do is pull over or change lanes until the tailgater passes, Thomas said. But if thats not an option, slow down and increase the distance between you and the car in front of you.

The more space you have in front of you, the less likely you are to make a sudden stop, which means the less likely the tailgater is to hit you, he said.

5. They signal too late or too early.

Frank said another common mistake new drivers make is improper signaling.

They turn their signal on at the corner where theyre planning on turning, or they dont signal at all, he said. Every once in a while, you get the kid who knows theyre supposed to signal early, and they might drive three-quarters of a block with a signal on too soon, youve got to balance that.

In Florida, Frank explained, you should signal at least 100 feet before you turn: Dont make [other drivers] guess where you may actually be turning.

That said, improper signaling happens with drivers of all experiences.

People just get lazy and dont signal, or they think that if they signal, someones going to steal their spot, Thomas said.

Take parallel parking as one common example. Ideally, you need to signal early and put your brakes on so that the cars behind you dont block you from backing into the spot, Thomas said.

6. They dont know where to look.

Too often, new drivers only look over the cars hood instead of looking out for whats next.

When they start out, they are resistant to the idea of looking ahead, looking up, because they think theyre going to get lost, Pupo said. More experienced drivers can also make the mistake of looking down at the ground in front of them instead of far enough ahead, he added.

If theres a car in front, look above the cars roof in front of you, Pupo suggested as one better way of looking while driving. And that gives you a better view than looking at the license plate or the ground.

Part of being a better driver is seeing the bigger picture, so you can make better driving decisions.

One of the sentences that Ive said to people over the years is, There is no car, and theres no ground. Its just you, the wheel, and where you want to be, Pupo said.