Defensive Driving School

Defensive Driving School

Defensive Driving School is not what it used to be. The days when a defensive driving course  started at the end of the school day is over. Teens no longer have this luxury and we are paying for it with more accidents and increased insurance rates. The common defensive driving class is a defensive driving course online and this is the new standard for learning to drive. An approved defensive driving course will not give new drivers behind the wheel experience. It does not take 90 days to complete like the old days. In fact the results are instant.

Long gone when your math teacher, looking for some extra money, signed up to teach defensive driving school. This is a huge casualty for parents and young drivers because now the option for teaching new drivers falls on the shoulders of independent companies, many driven by profits and looking for ways to cut quality of instruction. Defensive driving school is no longer personal and in no way is it better than in the past when teachers had the same emotional investment in teaching teen drivers as they did in the math lab. Today’s DVD video course may be all that a new driver gets.

You can now sign up for a defensive driving course online, but this is not the driver training you need. Taking traffic school online and learning to drive online is not enough for new drivers. The practices for motor vehicle testing may satisfy the state, but real world experience is still lacking with the present system. You may like the comedy defensive driving class, but after you have seen first hand the damage motor vehicle accidents cause, you will not appreciate the comedy routine that is part of the teaching.

Driver training needs to be behind the wheel and a defensive driving school needs to employ seasoned drivers, not college students looking to make some extra money.Yes, you may get a certificate of completion, but after defensive driving courses online, are you really prepared to take to the road? Defensivedriving is more than simulated testing. In fact, there should be defensive driving course in each aspect of driving. Today’s new drivers are just not prepared to take the road. This is evident with the number of accidents.

Teen Drivers have a unique mindset, but defensive driving is not at the top of the list. Think back. Who will ever forget that first car? For me it was an old beater, a 1963 VW dressed in faded red paint. The inside smelled of grease and boot leather because it had been my grandfathers car-the one he traveled to and from work in.

When he died, the car was passed on to me and at 16 it represented so much more than a car. Remember that teen drivers view a car and the right to passage as much more than an automobile.

For me and like for many of you, the right of passage was making that vehicle mine. The first thing I wanted to do was customize it. I wanted new paint and new mats, but more than anything else, I wanted it to carry my signature.

The car threw open the doors to the world and afforded me an opportunity for independence and exploration. Now, I’m buying my own kids cars, but the thrill is certainly gone, as BB King would say. The thrill is gone.

Car crashes have become the second most common cause of death with young people. More so than with guns and enough so that parents all over America cringe with the thought of their kids getting behind the wheel.

Between 1995 and 2004, drivers aged of 15-17  saw nearly 31,000 deaths, the majority of them passengers and pedestrians. Scarcely a month doesn’t pass without seeing grave sites marked with crosses and flowers along city streets across America.

The answer to combat these deaths is the institution of a Graduated Licensing Licensing across many states. It consists of a gradual learning phase which gives new drivers controlled access to the roads. After implementing this program across America, automobile crashes have decreased nearly 20%, but don’t tell this to the parents of teen fatalities. To them and to anybody who has lost loved ones in automobile accidents, the programs we have just aren’t enough.

We need more driving safety and increased driver improvement. We need better teaching and we need education that goes beyond theory.

Get the kids behind the wheel. Teach them what happens when they follow too close. Show them how to get out of a uncontrolled spin. Wet down the pavement and let them experience an out of control vehicle skidding off the road.

Get in the car with them and start playing around with the radio. Turn on the wipers unexpectedly as they try to maneuver a slalom course set up by experienced race car drivers who have a passion for teaching kids to drive defensively.

This works, but it isn’t perfect. Good kids sometimes make mistakes and we all need diving intervention when it comes to our kids driving.