Skiddin' School

Too often these days, we hear awful stories of teenagers dying or being seriously injured while operating a car. While it is true that many of these are alcohol or speed related, many can be attributed to a simple lack of knowledge.

While we all know that today's school or locally provided driver’s education programs are not sufficient to provide our teenagers with the instruction they need, we refuse to help them gain that upper edge, citing we have no time, or we don't know how to get the kids signed up. While it may be difficult for some to get their kids involved, I can say from first hand experience, that the time and money spent on a skid school could be life saving down the road.

Just recently, I attended Steven's Advanced Driver Training, a program run on a closed off section of the Hanscom AFB in Bedford, MA. They use up to date equipment (2 year old Volvo S40's) as well as 4 very well qualified driving instructors, all of whom have been racing cars their whole life. If anyone knows how to handle a car at the limit, they do. The course was spread over 4 hours of mostly in car time with little classroom instruction. Each participant (yes, long time drivers are allowed to enroll as well) is involved in 4 different exercises: 50mph-0mph hard braking to understand how the Antilock-Braking Systems on most new cars work; a slalom to understand how a car reacts to sudden turns, such as avoiding an object on the road; a tailgating exercise to demonstrate that the common following distance, about 2 car lengths, is not enough; and finally a lane change maneuver to learn how to avoid colliding with, for example an object that is lying in the middle of your lane on the highway.

Everything you learn in the course is knowledge you can actually use in the real world. Your teens, and even you (if you ride in the demo rides before each activity) will be more prepared to face the inherent dangers of driving on the road. If you're still skeptical, just look at the statistics: According to their research, a child under 18's risk of getting in a serious accident drops from 55% to 26%. That could be the difference between living, and being seriously injured in an accident.

If you would like more information on skid schools in your area as well as more info on how to help teen drivers, click on to this link that will take you to the Autoweek Magazine website where you can download one of their recent issues that focused on teen driving.

Take my advice! Please try and get your son or daughter enrolled in one of these courses. It truly can be lifesaving. And who knows, you might even learn a little something yourself.