Driver’s education is advantageous when looking to lower rates for car insurance. Today’s driver’s education is very different. Originally taught in schools in the 1950s- it was a result of the great highway building boom.
Today, most states do not pay for driver’s education, requiring instead that parents log 40 to 60 in-car hours with their kids as a prerequisite for a license. Since many parents want the benefits of driver’s ed for both their car insurance rates and their offspring’s’ safety, but cannot spend the time, paid driver’s education courses are the answer.
However states are reconsidering the education of teenage drivers. Urged by an increasing partnership of public school instructors and safety groups, new forms of driver’s safety classes are coming into being. Some are experimenting with extended training. A pilot program combines initial driver’s ed courses, six months behind the wheel under certain licensing restrictions and a second round of driver training.
The marketplace has also jumped in to rapidly fill the empty space. Safe Smart Women, a non-profit group in Silver Spring, MD.,has classes for women drivers in 12 cities. Florida-based New Driver Car Control Clinics located in 10 states has half-day seminars which situate teen drivers and one parent inside an auto while experts radio over directions on how to brake at the car’s limit and veer while retaining control. Even the AARP has an 8-hour classroom refresher Driver Safety Program to teach the effects of aging on driving and how you can adjust your driving.
At the Skip Barber School’s $600+, one-day program for teenagers, drivers speed through an obstacle course — the champagne slalom — as fast as they can while trying to balance a tennis ball in an oversized cup on the hood of the car, an exercise designed to demonstrate the relationship of braking,cornering and acceleration.
These new instructors believe that driving isn’t about taking written tests; it’s about psycho-motor skills. Classes place teen drivers and one parent inside a car on a motor track , while experts radio over instructions on how to brake at the vehicle’s limit and swerve while retaining control. Students learn safe driving techniques and get plenty of behind-the-wheel training.
Drivers Education has a green side too- By training in hybrids, students complete thousands of miles of training but use less fuel and create fewer carbon emissions. More and more programs are using these vehicles with great success. Drivers Ed Direct is a small driver’s education firm in Los Angeles that exclusively uses hybrid vehicles; specifically the Ford Escape. The popularity of hybrid vehicles in southern California is one of the keys to Drivers Ed Direct’s success.
There is even fun driving class. Comedy Guys Entertainment combining a bunch of professional comedians and a defensive driving school. Approved by Texas Department of Public Safety, instruction is in-class work, done in fine restaurants with meals and refreshments included.
For the time being, numerous car insurance companies charge lower rates for teenage drivers who have had driver’s education. That’s one important reason to make driver’s education an important part of a teen’s life.
