Leading Teen Defensive Driving Program To Host Important Driver Safety Event

INAUGURAL CENTRAL JERSEY TRAINING PROGRAM GIVES COMMUNITY CONFIDENCE BEHIND THE WHEEL

ENGLISHTOWN, NJ, DECEMBER 5, 2013 – In light of the recent tragedy involving two central New Jersey teens who were killed this past weekend in a fatal car crash, Drive Safer, the leading provider and advocate of driving safety for teens and adults, is hosting an important driver safety training program for members of the community affected during this difficult time. The inaugural Central Jersey program, which will be held on December 15th at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ, will offer drivers of all ages an intensive, hands-on course in car control and defensive driving as well as the opportunity to gain critical confidence behind the wheel.

“Motor vehicle accidents are the number one killer of teens in the US, and this has to stop,” says Jason Friedman, CEO of Drive Safer. “Many parents don’t have access to the critically important information that they need to protect and teach their teens how to safely operate and control their car, nor do they have the training in how to effectively teach it.”

Drive Safer was founded with the clear mission to mitigate the dangers that teens and all drivers face on the road each day. In response to the tragedy Friedman says, “We all take these horrible circumstances very personally, and we always strive to do as much as we can to educate, train and prevent such terrible occurrences from happening again.” As part of its commitment to saving lives, Drive Safer has offered to host a parent orientation for parents of teen drivers at Spotswood High School and is also extending free registration to its December 15th Car Control Clinic for Spotswood High School students and their families. Any member of the Spotswood community interested in registering for the event, please call 201-485-7792.

The one-day event, which combines hands-on, behind-the-wheel training with classroom instruction in vehicle dynamics and car control, goes beyond traditional driver’s education, enabling participants to experience a range of real-life situations they’ll inevitably face out on the road, along with the why and how to handle them in the future. Whereas most driver’s education courses only teach the rules of the road and basics of operating a motor vehicle, Drive Safer gives teens the skills needed to properly control a car in the face of the real world challenges that are most responsible for car accidents.

“Teens simply don’t have the skills and the tools they need to survive on the road when they leave their driver’s ed program or their six-hour driving course,” says Friedman. “When they’re going 60 miles per hour down a highway and hit some black ice or a pothole or someone swerves into their lane, they just don’t know how to handle that. We want them to have that ‘Oh, my God’ moment on our closed-course with an experienced instructor sitting next to them – able to show them how to handle it and explain why it happened in the first place, so it doesn’t happen to them again.”

Along with teaching proper driving techniques, Drive Safer courses also offer insight and driving tips from certified high performance driving instructors. These classes not only make the road safe for the participant, but also for those around them, inside and outside of their vehicle. Additionally, all students that successfully complete a Drive Safer course are eligible for insurance discounts and may be eligible to remove two points off their driver’s license.

For teens and new drivers, especially, an understanding of how to control their car, why it does what it does, and the physics behind it, is essential to knowing how to properly “tell” your car what to do. The majority of driver training falls on teens’ parents – but even veteran drivers let bad habits creep into their daily driving. By hosting events across New Jersey, Drive Safer aims to instill new drivers with the skills needed to survive on the road – not only until they get their licenses, but afterwards as well.

Drive Safer offers a behind the wheel defensive driving course and two other defensive driving course options that meets the criteria to deduct points from your license AND get you an insurance reduction.