How about saving a few lives?, Bet we could Options

[Randal]

I've been thinking about a driving course for licensed kids 16-20. Basically a skid pad with water just to teach them the basics about control.

We keep losing kids in California, especially on freeways. They get sideways - moving out of the way of another driver who doesn't understand lane control - and once sideways they simply don't have the basic skills to recover.

I think we have all seen people getting caught in a bad lane change situation, trying to recover and just about rolling their cars.

Honestly when you see people driving around the Bay Area you just shutter and wonder how long it will be before they hurt themselves or someone else. I’d bet their training is 10% of what the Department of Fish and Game requires for a kid to secure a hunting license. And when it comes to weapons, a car or an SUV is a big one.

Possibly we could sanction a course with the 914 Club or maybe get a few more clubs out there to help. Maybe the CHP would be willing to host the exercise. Maybe we set aside 6 hours of the 914Club West Coast gig to do it.

I know we can get insurance, but possibly this will be harder than I think. PCA, SCCA, LPR and the other clubs do get insurance, but their groups might be easier to cover. I think the insurance we get falls under "driver training."

As far as locations we wouldn't need a huge place.

There has to be some good documentation available on skid pad training. I’ll talk to Hank Watts, one of the world’s greatest instructors/ organizers, and see what he thinks about a suitable training agenda - and the amount of time per student necessary.

Hank and his (well taught) instructors have educated all kinds of people to drive fast around tracks, so skid pad training by comparison would seem a walk in the park.

Getting just one kid to understand the basics would be worth it.

Does this make any sense or is there a better way?

[soloracer]

That is the same idea I had about 2 or 3 months ago. I work for a large trucking company. We had a demo in a Walmart parking lot where we parked a truck and trailer and then parked vehicles around it in the driver's blind spots. We told the public that we could make all these cars dissappear (4 vehicles in total). When they asked how we put them in the drivers seat of the big truck, closed the door and then asked them to find the vehicles in their mirrors. It was really an eye opener for them and I believe they gained an appreciation for just how challenging driving an 18 wheeler really is.

So along that line of thought I thought what can I do for our customers? I'm in the marketing dept. and we are always looking for ways to get more one on one time with our customers in a non work environment. I know the majority of them have kids and I thought it would be great to offer a driving school that concentrated on car control. The basic driving schools cover the rules of the road but like you I feel that the kids don't get the necessary lessons in car control that only come from the experience of actually doing it. I thought as an incentive I could approach our insurance company and see if they could sponsor a draw for one years auto insurance for a young driver. I know that would be a very popular incentive since the insurance rates here have skyrocketed in the past year.

Later on I started thinking about eventually making this sort of thing an event and seeing if the Porsche club and the Harley Davidson club would be interested in participating. The Porsche guys would bring the car instructors and the Harley guys could look after bike handling. I would sell it to both the Harley and Porsche dealers as being beneficial to them because they both target the same customers and a joint effort would generate a lot of publicity. The only problem is how do you limit the number of applicants? I imagine a quota would have to be set up with a certain number of places reserved for my customers. While the kids are being instructed I would get some good one on one time with their parents in an observation role. I think it would make for an interesting day for all.