I keep pointing out to get ahead of the car, instead of behind it, but he is struggling with the concept. I would have thought with the generation of "gamers" their eye/hand coordination would be much better than this.

Call me a very sick man, I actually enjoy teaching first-timers to drive...

Or ride a bicycle... or motorcycle... or waterski... or operate a passenger train... or pilot a boat...

Realize that when doing so, there's TWO 'comfort zones' that need to be broken:

First is that of the student... second is that of the instructor.

Learning to do something with machinery or tools happens in stages.  I can relate it best to learining morse-code:

AT FIRST, you learn and listen for dits and dahs, and turn them into letters and numbers.

 THEN, you hear the letters and form words.

  THEN you hear words (long and shortand abbreviations) and turn them into sentences.

    THEN the sentences become conversation.

The steps of learning are all about committing a part of one's direct attention into a subconcious process.  In learning morse code, one must listen through the noise for the dits and dahs of the station you want to hear (there's lots of others coming amids all the other noise).  Then you're listening to determine the speed and rythm of what's being sent, and deciding wether the sound was a short (dit) or long (dah), and wether the space between was a new character, or a new word.

Eventually all those actions become comitted to subconcious processing... with that done, one's brain can use the immediate attention to arranging words... then sentences, etc.

When one learns to operate any machine, there's similar concurrent activities that must be learned.  Once seat set, belted in, mirrors adjusted, engine started, check the gauges, lights on, parking brake released, the act of driving a has steering, brakes, throttle, that includes lane position, speed regulation,  as well as navigation, traffic awareness, obstructions and hazards, periphery and distraction management, signalling, pedestrian avoidance, rules of the road...

And if there's a manual transmission involved... clutch, shift, RPM, downhill and uphill shifting, starting on hills (rollback management)...

Each of these is a necessary step, gotta start somewhere, get that part licked, then move to the next.  Patience.. and a big empty parking lot.

 

  Today's kids aren't allowed to do anything growing up. then they are expected to be able to do something as they approach adulthood.   

 I feel for you, taught my live-ins 2 daughters to drive, what an experience. 

Amazon , and others, offer next day delivery, for free , so WHY bother going to the store ? !! This HAS to be a HUGE factor.

Car insurance is the other one !  Up here, single, 22 yr old  female, 1 minor accident will pay $4,000 per year to insure a 2014 Rogue ( no collision) I know as I pay for my granddaughter. She's a GREAT kid,has a job,money in the bank and yes, says please and THANK YOU.

Indeed.

Since my Wife and I have retired, we do an inordinate amount of Amazon shopping. We live ~20 miles from town, and while I would prefer to patronize 'local' businesses it often makes more sense to have stuff delivered directly to the house rather than make a 40 mile round trip which also involves a certain amount of risk in addition to fuel, wear & tear, etc.

Example: A couple of weeks ago we were in town early in the day and stopped at the 'local' Autozone to get a distributor cap and rotor for my pickup. When I told the sweet young lady behind the counter that I needed parts for my 85 Ford "Three hundred six" she said "All I can find is a 302". I explained that it was a 300 cubic inch six cylinder but they may call it a 4.9 liter, which she quickly found and said they didn't have the parts in stock but could have them there that evening. I politely said that would require an extra trip to town so I would just order it from Amazon.

Self-driving vehicles...  Mark my words here:

In the future, there will be accidents where... vehicle 'safety features' like 'Collision Avoidance' and 'stability control' will take away the driver's capacity to react to circumstances... and the end result will be that damage, injury, and death will occur.

The 'driver' of the vehicle will be held responsible, BUT... because of the 'safety systems' taking away command authority of the vehicle, will have been stripped of all capacity to take a 'better' measure.

How could this be?  Here's an example:

You're driving down a highway, you see clear road, but you're coming to an area that has a patch of black ice.  A deer runs across the road just as you come ONTO the ice.  YOU recognize that attempting to dodge the deer would fling you out of control and smash you into a minivan full of children... so instead, you let up and coast, and graze the deer as it stumbles on the ice.  Deer escapes with a bruise on the hip, there's a fur tuft in your fender, but you're still rolling and everyone is fine.

Now you're in your new car, approaching the same black ice.  Car sees the deer, goes into Collision Avoidance Mode, slams on brakes and attempts to steer around the deer.  Car slides, dynamic stability starts hammering on one front wheel, you go sideways, biff the deer, peg the aft corner of the minivan, sending it into a sideways spin, into the end of a guardrail, cutting the car in half, killing 3 of the five, you go off the other side into the ditch, and roll over.

You get ticketed for 'failure to maintain', and then get slapped with a civil suit for 3 counts of wrongful death.

Who is at fault?  Easy:  The car manufacturer.  At the time of the loss of control, it wasn't the driver's hands or feet driving- it was the 'collision avoidance' and 'dynamic stability' features.  The Manufacturer of the vehicle TOOK AWAY control from the driver, and as such, liability for the result falls on the Element In Control.

All the computer power, all the radar, ultrasonic, wheel speed, ambient temperature, and gyroscopic sensors in the world cannot do what the human driver does naturally-  Observe the environment, and see the future.

The most important skills that ANY learning driver should develop, is the ability to maintain situational awareness, and adapt.    An excellent example above, was taking kids out to a big flat parking lot, and teach them how to perform a donut, a controlled drift, and to be able to modulate between under and oversteer conditions... and FURTHERMORE, be able to do it regardless of wether the vehicle is empty, or full... respond, and account for change of center of gravity- that's balance amidst roll, pitch, and yaw.  Learn to drive a car sideways on ice, and you can do it on wet pavement, or on dirt, or in mud, on gravel... and you can make the transition from one surface circumstance to another.

Computers don't see deer coming up from ditches, and they do NOT understand the concept of sacrificing a deer, or a squirrel, or a skunk.  It will NOT recognize that ONE deer running cross the road means ANOTHER is right behind, and a third coming up after.

Worst off, a computer will NOT make the ultimate sacrifice decision:

A golden retriever, with a 20-foot leash, dragging a 6 year old girl... is different from a Deer.  When the dog runs across the road, and a panic stop risks a rearend, you're supposed to biff the dog.  What if there's a little girl being dragged behind? There's two answers-  Make the stop, and use your car to protect the girl from the next one coming behind... or...  Sharp turn into a tree, and pray the airbags save you and your passenger.

Computers don't do that.  They'll save the car, and sacrifice the girl.