autoweek 2011 teen driving

7/29/2019 Autoweek 2011 Teen Driving

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M OCTOBER 3, 2011 autoweek.co


2/724 AUTOWEEK OCTOBER 3, 2011

WHOSTEACHINGTHE TEENS?

TEEN DRIVERS 2011

We still have nominimal standardnationwide

BY KEVIN A. WILSON


3/7OCTOBER 3, 2011 AUTOWEEK 25

HERES HOW YOU

prove youre qualified

to teach driving in

Colorado: Fill a glass container with

ice. Breathe on the glass. If condensation

forms, youre in.

So said Ronn Langford, founder

and CEO of MasterDrive (online at

www.masterdrive.com), a driving school

based in Colorado Springs, Colo., that

also operates in Californias OrangeCounty.

In California, its tougher, Langford

added. You take a test that turns out to

be about as tough as the multiple-choice

exam to get a drivers license. Its curso-

ry. But at least theres a requirement.

A little sarcasm goes a long way to

make the point that despite decades of

reform in the driver-education field,

theres no minimal standard nationwide.

Under systems of graduated driver li-

censing (GDL), teens are required to

spend many hours driving with a parent

or guardian. But there is no certainty

that the parent is a good driver, let

alone a competent teacher of the skill.

Thats why we called Langforda

presenter at Autoweeks Teen Driving

Safety Summit back in 2007when

we heard that the National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

had published Novice Teen Driver

Education and Training Administrative

Standards. You can find the document

online at http://tinyurl.com/

AWteendrivingreport)

The document purports to provide

a comprehensive framework for state

driver-education systems.

Although its described as a nonman-

dated, unenforceable guideline, when

GDL laws were first discussed, the same

applied. Today, NHTSA has leveraged

its clout and made GDLin at least

some formthe standard in all 50

states.

Characterizing this recent effort for

us during a Ford-sponsored Web chat,

Justin McNaull, director of the AAAs

state relations office, said that a group

of driver-education stakeholders . . .

worked with NHTSA to develop guide-

lines for improving driver education

nationwidebetter curricula, better

instructor standards, better use of

technology and better incorporation

of behind-the-wheel practice. Were in-

volved with a group that is now trying

to figure out how to put these standards

GETTYIM

AGES(3)



into practice in the states.

Ford group vice president Sue

Cischke noted that for its annual con-

vention on Sept. 25, the Governors

Highway Safety Association, one of

the major players in this arena, sched-

uled a 90-minute workshop on re-forming driver education.

Stripped of the jargon, this sounds

like progress toward something weve

advocated in the pages of Autoweek:

a nationwide system for ensuring that

all new drivers acquire a base set of

skills from instructors who share an

understanding of what theyre doing.

But Langford suggests that the docu-

ment might not amount to much. For

instance, he said, it says a driving in-

structor needs 120 hours of training.

That sounds impressive. But 120 hoursdoing what? If its just sitting around a

classroom studying the same old stuff

that we know doesnt work to make

people into better drivers, what are you

achieving?

Langford sets high standards for the

people he hires and trains to coach new

drivers. And coach is a key word.

MasterDrive programs are grounded in

brain science and an understanding of

how people learn new skills. Rather

than engage in the debate over whether

driving should be a privilege or a

MasterDrive programs include visual-

processing and brain-integration exercises

that aim to improve response time.

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5/7OCTOBER 3, 2011 AUTOWEEK 27

PROGRAMSSHOW DANGERSOF DISTRACTEDDRIVING, OFFERSKILLS TO KEEPTEENS SAFE

BY DON KLEIN

AS ALBERT EINSTEIN

wisely observed, Any man

who can drive safely while

kissing a pretty girl is sim-

ply not giving the kiss the

attention it deserves.

Although Einstein likely

never heard the term

multitasking, he obviously

grasped the concept: You

cant drive well and do

something else at the

same timeeven if youre

a genius.

Clearly, most of us

arent geniuses. Last year,

almost 33,000 people lost

their lives in vehicular acci-

dents in the United States,

often because they were

driving while distracted. A

disproportionate percent-

age of those people were

younger than 21. In fact,

death by automobile is the

leading cause of teen mor-

tality in the States.

Want more scary statis-

tics? Put just one teen

passenger in a car driven

by another teen, and the

likelihood of a fatal crash

doubles. Add an additional

teen passenger, and the

odds go up 500 percent.

Yet, despite these disturb-

ing statistics, every year,

thousands of ill-prepared

teens are issued licenses

to kill. Doesnt anybody

care?

Bob Green does. In

1996, Greena former

high school teacher and

longtime Skip Barber

Racing School senior in-

structorestablished a

nonprofit lecture series

for high schools called

Survive the Drive (online atwww.survivethedrive.org)

that slots nicely into 45-

minute assembly periods.

The lecture includes

videos made by students

who have lost classmates

in crashes, along with

graphic stills of mangled

cars and a dramatic

demonstration using his

(fake) pet mouse Ernie,

whom he puts into a

screw-top tin can andhurls violently at the floor

to replicate how unre-

strained humans flail

about in a crash.

But getting kids atten-

tion is just half of the equa-

tion. Hands-on education

is the other component.

Youve got to engage

them in the learning

process, says Rich

Radi, who runs Top Driver

(online at www.topdriver.com), a school dedicated

to making kids better

drivers.

Most drivers-ed pro-

grams havent changed

since they were created

in the 50s. They tell kids

what to do but dont ask

them why theyre doing it.

By engaging them, they

learn and remember.

But in the end, it comes

down to the kids them-

selves. When asked

whether the recent deaths

of two classmates in sepa-

rate car crashes made him

a safer driver, a Virginia

teen we spoke with

replied, Sure, Im safer

now. I mean, what are the

chances of three kids from

the same school getting

killed in one year?

Do we have your atten-

tion now?c

May We Have YourAttention, Please?

MIKEMARINO/HELIXCAMERA

Bob Green



right, MasterDrive promotes the

view that its a skill. Its a psychomotor

activity that involves both brain and

body, much like playing a sport or a

musical instrument. So its programs

involve a lot of behind-the-wheel prac-

tice that Langford equates to driving

camp.

A parent might send a teen to a

camp for his or her sport or instrument,

Langford said, and what would you

expect? That theyd spend the wholetime sitting in a classroom taking tests

in football theory? No! You expect

them to get a full immersion experi-

ence. Likewise, MasterDrive students

get a lot of driving time and coaching.

While that program goes far beyond

traditional driver education, dozens

of alternative programs offer to teach

young drivers skills they dont get from

the established order. Tire Rack spon-

sors Street Survival, Ford has Driving

Skills for Life, Toyota has Driving

Expectations, and there are many

more backed by auto-industry suppli-

ers, insurance companies and educa-

tional outlets.

When so many alternatives attempt

to redress evident deficiencies, it would

seem that we have cultural agreement

that somethings amiss in the establish-

ment.

Jeff Payne, who exposes teens to

emergency handling maneuvers in a

traveling program he calls Drivers

Edge, was a member of the group that

helped NHTSA devise its new guide-

TEEN DRIVERS 2011

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Teen drivers make up a disproportionatelylarge percentage of total crashes given their

percentage of total drivers, NHTSAdatashow. But the number of fatal and nonfatalcrashes is declining, as is the number of

crashes involving teen drivers. For these datateen drivers refers to those ages 15 to 20.

Teen DrivingStatistics

>Motor-vehicle

crashes are theleading cause of deathfor 15-to-20-year-olds(2007, National Center

for Health Statistics,most recent dataavailable).

>In 2009, 5,148teen drivers

were involved infatal crashes, a 37

percent decreasefrom 2000.

>Of 208.3

million licensed

drivers in the UnitedStates in 2008, 6.4

percent were 15-to-20-year-olds, up 5.1percent from 1999.

>In 2009, 11percent of all

drivers involved in fatalcrashes were teens,and 14 percent ofall drivers involved

in police-reportedcrashes were teens.

>In 2009, 28 percent of young

drivers killed in crashes hada blood-alcohol content of 0.08percent or higher. Of thoseinvolved in fatal crashes, 24

percent had been drinking.

>In 2008,

2,742 teendrivers died, and228,000 were

injured. In 2009,these numbersdeclined by 15percent, to 2,336,

and 14 percent,to 196,000.

>In 2009, 15.2percent of

teens involved infatal crashes had

invalid licenses.Of those, 31percent also hadprevious license

suspensions orrevocations at thetime of the crash.

lines. (Like Langford, Payne was a pre-

senter at Autoweeks 2007 summit.)

He said that the 100 participantsfrom

traditional driver-education programs,

for the most partwere well-meaning

people. Few were drawn to the field

without a serious concern for young

people and safety. But they had no in-

terest in radical reform.

Bill Van Tassel, manager of driver-

training programs for the AAA and a

member of the working group, alerted

us to the NHTSA document initially.

He said he found the discussion encour-

aging in that the safety establishment

was interested in raising its standards.

Still, he said, the inertia of the status

quo means that working within the

system is, of necessity, a slow process.

Langford remains skeptical. If you

dont start from the premise that the

system is broken, he said, youre not

really going to fix it.

He and others have grown weary of

waiting for governments to act and are

instead focused on private-enterprise

solutions. Both Payne and Langford

suggested that insurers might be the

stakeholders that could do the most to

force changes. In Colorado, teens who

complete a course of study that match-

es the MasterDrive curriculum are eli-

gible for an insurance discount. And

theyve learned from coaches who have

qualifications that go beyond the ability

to fog a mirror. c

The MasterDrive (top) and Ford Driving Skills for Life (above) programs teach young drivers skillsthey might not get from traditional drivers-ed courses. While so many alternative programs seem

to signal that reform is needed in drivers ed, change is slow to materialize.

OCTOBER 3, 2011 AUTOWEEK 29

MARKSTOLBERG

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