Some of the brighter students in the city's driving schools are grandparents many of whom have taken up the new skill to help out their families.

Cai Jinlin, 58-year-young, is in the middle of his driving course at Shanghai Shenghao driving school.

The retired grandfather and his wife look after their newborn grandson and live with his daughter and son-in-law.

Cai said it was his intention to enrich his life after he retired and that his desire to take better care of the baby led him to sign up for the driving course.

"When we were young, owning a family car and paying for driving courses was completely beyond our capacity and imagination, given our incomes," Cai said.

"Now our life has become much better and we are financially able to explore and enjoy more in our lives."

Cai said he was looking forward to being able to travel with his wife and grandson more easily after learning how to drive.

"Driving is a useful skill that will broaden the scope of life for me and my wife. We are looking forward to driving out by ourselves to see and enjoy more interesting things in the world."

Like many of the older driving school students Cai said taking care of his grandson was also a spur to learning how to drive.

"My daughter and son-in-law are both very busy at work. I hope I will be able to drive my grandson out to see the world and help the child's mental development," Cai said.

Other grandparent students whose grandchildren are of school age are hoping to drive the children to and from school every day.

Xia, an experienced driving tutor with the Dazhong Driving School, said he has seen a rapid growth in the number of older students during the past year, many of them are from wealthy families.

"They are retired professors, teachers, and most of them are well educated and wanting to enrich their lives. They aged from the late 50s to the middle 60s, " Xia said.

Xia praised his "old" students for especially being particularly keen and for their careful approach during driving practice.

"As a group they all take the course very seriously," Xia said.