Car Insurance Driver's Education Updated

Driver's education is beneficial when applying for car insurance; lowering your rates. However , driver's education has changed. It was hot in schools in the 1950s , a product of the great highway building boom.

But public school driver's education began to decline in the early 1980s after research that said teenagers who took such courses had the same rate of accidents and injuries as those who didn't. Federal funding for driver's education dried up, and most states ended their programs. Since many parents want the benefits of driver's ed for both their car insurance rates and their offspring's' safety, but cannot spend the time, paid driver's education courses are the answer.

However states are reconsidering the education of teenage drivers. Urged by an increasing partnership of public school instructors and safety groups, new forms of driver's safety classes are coming into being. Some are experimenting with extended training. A pilot program combines initial driver's ed courses, six months behind the wheel under certain licensing restrictions and a second round of driver training.

The market has also moved in to quickly fill the void. Safe Smart Women , a non-profit group in Silver Spring, MD., stages clinics for female drivers in 12 cities. Florida-based New Driver Car Control Clinics are in 10 states; its half-day seminars place teen drivers and one parent inside a car while experts radio over instructions on how to brake at the vehicle's limit and swerve while retaining control. Even the AARP has an 8-hour classroom refresher Driver Safety Program to learn the effects of aging on driving and how you can adjust your driving.

A one-day course ,called Street Survival,is intended to give teens the skills to deal with extreme conditions. These sessions are organized by the local BMW Car Club of America and staffed by volunteers, who ride with the teens as they go through maneuvers. Here teens accelerate and slam on the brakes, take curves too fast and make the car skid on a hosed-down parking lot--all to practice regaining control.

Other classes have a radical new approach to traditional driver's education: using hip young instructors to guide teens through hair-raising maneuvers on a track so they can survive the unexpected on the road. Students learn safe driving techniques and get plenty of behind-the-wheel training.

Drivers Education has a green side too- By training in hybrids, students complete thousands of miles of training but use less fuel and create fewer carbon emissions. More and more programs are using these vehicles with great success. Drivers Ed Direct is a small driver's education firm in Los Angeles that exclusively uses hybrid vehicles; specifically the Ford Escape. The popularity of hybrid vehicles in southern California is one of the keys to Drivers Ed Direct's success.

There is even fun driving class. Comedy Guys Entertainment combining a bunch of professional comedians and a defensive driving school. Approved by Texas Department of Public Safety, instruction is in-class work, done in fine restaurants with meals and refreshments included.

Meanwhile, many car insurance companies charge lower rates for teen drivers who have taken driver's education. That's one more reason it matters to make driver's education a significant part of a teen's coming of age.

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