BUSINESS IN GWINNETT: Program for teens teaches defensive driving technique D. Aileen Dodd - Staff You are traveling down
I-85 at a high rate of speed, and suddenly the driver in front of you slams
on his brakes. 
David Thompson --- a
race-car driver turned safety expert --- knows the answer can mean the
difference between life and death on busy roadways. "The panic
reaction is to slam on the brake pedal, hang on and wait to hit what you are
about to hit,'' Thompson said. But there is a safer
method. "What is not
instinctive," he said, "is to follow that up with other kinds of
actions --- like tearing your eyes away from whatever is in front of you,
looking for an escape route and steering in that direction. If you don't look
away from the object in your path, the odds that you will hit it go way up.''
In a program designed
for teenagers, Thompson is sharing his defensive driving and accident
avoidance techniques with young drivers, who nationally account for about
6,500 automobile-related fatalities a year.
The course is viewed as
a supplement driver's education courses that have been scaled back or cut in
many states. The course is offered in Florida, Alabama, Massachusetts, North
Carolina and Georgia. Registration is open
for classes at two sites in Gwinnett County in June, July and August. The
classes will be held at First Baptist Church in Snellville and Eastmont
Shopping Center in Stone Mountain. The six-hour clinic
starts with a 45-minute video and ends with five hours of hands-on
instruction in an automobile. It teaches teens and their parents how to judge
spatial relationships, how to expand their steering capacity, how to improve
their brake management and how to keep control of their car in all
conditions. At a recent class,
Thompson sprayed oil and water in a parking lot to make a slippery roadway.
Then on a walkie-talkie, he told Amelia Godfrey of Atlanta, a 15-year-old
with a driver's permit, to approach the obstacle and slam on her brakes. "It was an
emergency response drill,'' she said. "It was pretty difficult.'' Her father, David
Godfrey, helped talk her through it. "She went into it
at 20 miles an hour, hit the brakes and clung onto the wheel. The car slid
over the pavement, and I earned a few more gray hairs,'' Godfrey said.
"It was kind of scary because, for a moment, the car was out of control.
I think it scared her a little bit, but she did pretty good.'' Bryce General of
Atlanta attended the session with her mother, Tina, and was named the most
improved driver by the course's conclusion. "Early on, she was
there, but she was not fully alert,'' Tina said, adding her daughter had
stayed out late the night before. "When we had to drive into a box on an
obstacle course, she got half the exercise, and the teacher said on his
walkie-talkie, 'Car No. 6, you are going to have to get your head out of the
sand.' She was mortified." By the end of the day,
Bryce was feeling better behind the wheel. "I'm not a
confident driver,'' she said. "He taught us to be aware of what we are
doing and what everyone else is doing, so I feel more confident. I drove home
on the highway.'' The rising senior at
Dunwoody High plans to take her driver's test in two weeks. She already has a
car --- a gold Saturn coupe handed down from a relative. "I've been
washing it and everything, but it still hasn't moved'' from its parking
space. The teams left the
course with experience and homework. Each received a 56-page
workbook with diagrams and 10 exercises. The teams also got a driving log
and a parent-teen contract that promises they will spend the 20 to 40
hours of supervised driving time required by Georgia's new Teenage and Adult
Driver Responsibility Act. "In this country,
one of four teenagers crashes in their first 12 months of driving,'' said
Thompson. "Most of those accidents occur because of inexperience and
lack of skill. The parents are our last great hope.'' For more information,
call the clinic at 800-862-3277 or visit the Web site at www.carcontrol.com. |
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