[scott]

strange some of you all talk like all teen driver aspire to be racers...they don't. The cuase of these types of accidents is that they simply lack the responsibility, maturity and focus to be safe drivers. Teens wreck cars and lives becuse of bad dicisions. Nobody makes a bad decision during thier driving test...it usually happens at night, with firends in the car. The decision was to go fast, let firends not wear seat belts, talk and laugh it up being part of the party going on in the back seat...the bad decision was to not make driving the number one and only priority when behind the wheel. You don't need to teach oversteer techniques...you need to teach driver responisibility and disipline.

I have a teen ready to dirve...or at least she thinks so. trust me. shes not. and she won't till she demonstrates, not driving skills, but maturity and disipline. Till then I will continue to drive her her and there... safe drivers make safe roads, safe cars are just band aids for our monetarty lapses in disipline.

[rs911t]

strange some of you all talk like all teen driver aspire to be racers

No, that's not what's being said. Instruction on a skid pad or braking/slalom exercises simply gives the driver (young or old) the opportunity to experience how their car behaves when it's asked to perform an evasive manuveur. Better yet, the driver experiences how the driver behaves when the car gets of out sorts. All this happens in a safe environment, e.g. no cars to go into head-on. Everyone gets to learn from the experience rather than being killed by it.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by rs911t

No, that's not what's being said. Instruction on a skid pad or braking/slalom exercises simply gives the driver (young or old) the opportunity to experience how their car behaves when it's asked to perform an evasive manuveur. Better yet, the driver experiences how the driver behaves when the car gets of out sorts. All this happens in a safe environment, e.g. no cars to go into head-on. Everyone gets to learn from the experience rather than being killed by it.

This was my point. We all know that a teen is going to do something stupid behind the wheel at some point. The question is, will they have the training and skills to recover from their poor judgment.

[Potomac-Greg]

Originally Posted by scott

strange some of you all talk like all teen driver aspire to be racers...they don't. The cuase of these types of accidents is that they simply lack the responsibility, maturity and focus to be safe drivers. Teens wreck cars and lives becuse of bad dicisions. Nobody makes a bad decision during thier driving test...it usually happens at night, with firends in the car. The decision was to go fast, let firends not wear seat belts, talk and laugh it up being part of the party going on in the back seat...the bad decision was to not make driving the number one and only priority when behind the wheel. You don't need to teach oversteer techniques...you need to teach driver responisibility and disipline.

I have a teen ready to dirve...or at least she thinks so. trust me. shes not. and she won't till she demonstrates, not driving skills, but maturity and disipline. Till then I will continue to drive her her and there... safe drivers make safe roads, safe cars are just band aids for our monetarty lapses in disipline.

I see the point. Teens don't crash just because they lack the skills to control the car in extreme situations. Rather, then lack teh judgment/maturity to refrain from stupid or risky behavior. But that's a second and separate reason to get a kid into a performance driving course. Let them blow off steam and experiment on track. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that on-road experimentation would go down if drivers got their rocks off on track. Tracking certainly makes me a less adventurous street driver.

[scott]

I get the driver performance arguement Learning how to react and control the car in normal adn extreme situations. I was fortunate to learn driving dynamics first with bikes, then motorcycles then gocarts.

However, I 'm not too old though to rmember the night I drove into the back of a large, parked station wagon when I was 16. Going a blistering 25 mph...why, she was very cute, funny, liked me and .....in the backseat! while I was supposed to be driving. Never saw it. just bang. No recovery from the bad decision, no turing into the skid, no brake pumping or antilock planted foot. no brake modulation, no understeer avoidance no understanding of wieght transfer. blah blah blah. No experimentation here, just my poor decision to look at the hottie in the backseat while putting around a side street curve. Forgot I was driving the car. I was lucky. just going 25. I had been know to go a lot faster most of the time... same scenario on a unmarked back road going say 50ish hitting a big tree? and it would be a different story. Nobody forgets they are driving or is distracted during a driving clinic. They are really focused. somehow we have to teach our teens how important it is to not to be distracted, when, as a teen, you are easily distracted by just about everything. Focus First.

Best lesson I ever learned was in drivers ed. After stopping at the stop sign the instructor place his clip board over the guage panel and asked how much fuel we had? I said enough? He said when you are driving the car your head needs to be driving the car.

[joep]

Originally Posted by scott

somehow we have to teach our teens how important it is to not to be distracted, when, as a teen, you are easily distracted by just about everything. Focus First.

Teens today I think are not given enough opportunity to learn responsibility and consequences of their actions from a young age. Long before I first drove a car I had the fear of god in me for my life if I did something stupid.

Learning to focus is a life skill that they, and we, need. When was the last time you saw a kid just sitting somewhere day dreaming peacefully?

Technical driving skills are a important sure, but I agree with the maturity comments above most of all.

I wonder though. Growing up I had to wait til nobody else was using the family car, and then I was never free enough to be out at night driving it with friends. We just didn't have enough cars in the family for this.

In a few ways this recession is gonna do us all some good.

[Redroc]

It wouldn't be popular, but I think the driving age needs to be raised to 18.

[Fairfax 944]

Originally Posted by Redroc

It wouldn't be popular, but I think the driving age needs to be raised to 18.

Punish all parents, and 16 and 17 year olds because 1 out of 1,000 (or higher) make a mistake? There are some good teenage drivers out there that are far better than some adults.

Not too long ago, my wife was in gridlocked traffic trying to make a left turn in front of oncoming traffic. The nice lady in the oncoming lane was stopped and waived my wife in front of her. My wife (driving my nice Audi) started to turn left, but traffic moving in the opposite direction started to move. The nice lady proceeded to move with traffic and smash into my wife's car, after she had just waived her to pass in front of her. Should we ban all 60 year old asian women from driving because this particular 60 year old asian woman can't drive? (The amazing thing about this story was that I don't believe the woman denied the facts.)

[KevinOyler]

The news report said the rear seat passengers were not wearing seat belts and the passenger who died was in the middle in the rear seat.

[roundel]

Not all that is taught at Street Survival is car control. Much of the benefit is that there is a gathering of people, parents, and teens where the whole focus of the day is survival. Teens get a day where people are focused on them, talking to them about driving and all its pitfalls.

I believe that current cars may contribute to the problem. IIRC cars used to feel much more like they were hurdling steel cages. Going 60 or 70 mph felt FAST. Today's cars are so insulating, smooth, and quiet that it is easy to feel like you are in your lounge chair in front of the TV. Maybe oº toe or even some toe-out would help keep novices focused on driving. Get all the modern safety advances including ABS, crumple zones, traction control, but more twitchiness.

Just a theory.