You are doing good work Norm!

That is AWESOME Norm. Now if you teach a class up here in NorCal, I will definitely bring my daughter and some of her friends to you. Actually I want to get some coaching from you.

I actually took my daughter when she was 15 3/4 years old to a Teen Car Control Clinic sponsored by NASA and Thunderhill and she loved it. Looked like she was having so much fun that I wanted to jump in and play too. She went down the front straights going about 103mph and taking turn one around 65mph. Now when she drives on the highway, she feel much more confident. But the big thing is I feel much better knowing she is capable of handing herself if any situations were to arise.

I would highly recommend any teen driving school for new drivers, senior drivers and even average drivers who have never experienced panic braking, split decision lane change, 2 wheels off road, skid pad and slalom course, etc.

Thanks Sid, I would love to come up there, hopefully we can work it out soon!
Only 1.5% of total drivers on the highways have more than 10 minutes of accident avoidance training in a controlled environment! So you are right it's needed at all ages, new drivers is a good place to start and if the government will make this type of training mandatory for new drivers, we can get closer to 100% of drivers having the training.

Both of my daughters have been to Drivers Edge. www.driversedge.org
It is free for drivers from 15 - 21 and has a schedule that travels around the country. It is paid for with corporate sponsorship.

My youngest daughter had Ari Luyendyk Jr as her instructor in Vegas last month.

This is not to take away from anything that NASA and Norm are doing. Which by the way is great.

It is just to add to the knowledge base of available options to get your teen in a program that could save their lives or that of someone else.

Thanks for posting this Norm. We will have to get together soon.

See ya!!

I used to instruct with the Teen Street Survival Clinic so understand the need for this. What was happening is some of the parents would sign up too including my wife who never drove a car in anger before and she loved it (enough to do a couple of DEs). I feel that this should not be limited to teenage drivers but to all drivers (even be a requirement for a license like they do in Finland).

Hi Joel, thanks for your input on training drivers of all ages, you are 100% right and we do that, our teen school for beginners is called 099 and the next level is 101 and progresses upto 400 level for personal high performance training on track, ie hpde 1,2,3or4.

Small world, when you posted that you instructed for Teen Street Survival Clinic and I saw you are from the mid west, I talked to Fraser Elliot who moved here from the mid west and instructed for them as well and he said you two are friends and he instructed your wife. Fraser is one of our instructors and does a great, great job getting the kids upto speed, we are very lucky to have him on the team. We don't have Arie Luyendyk Jr. to wow us, but we have some very qualified guys making this program a total success. Please come out sometime when we are having a class and NASA race, you can instruct and drive my spec car, well unless it's gonna be $200 for 20 minutes of tire use! haha

To All, Only read on if your interested in what we are doing and how it differs from some or most other teen driving schools:

I worked for a defensive teen driving school many years ago and have observed other schools to compile a program that I feel is the best for our students. Included in my observation was drivers edge that Charlie mentioned and a very similar one called B.R.A.K.E.S, both are 501c3 non profit corps, which is a brilliant idea, we will be a 501c3 upon government approval so we can also not charge students and rely on contributions and donations. So far, we ask for $99 per student, we have chosen to not charge several of them because the families are either having financial issues or they are a part of our Team helping to get this going. So far Susan and I are paying out for this, but not as much if it weren't for NASA-AZ, Arizona Motorsport Park (AMP) and the volunteers.

(1) I believe that is very important for the new driver to do their training in THE vehicle that they will be primarily driving, we have had students in mini-vans, pick up trucks etc...vehicles that you need first hand experience feeling the dynamics while doing accident avoidance maneuvering. (you don't get 100% of that driving a different vehicle and most of the schools have you drive their cars)

(2) Limit 7 students for 2 instructors, personal attention is important to make sure bad habits don't start forming and that the student is maximizing the inputs for that particular exercise, so far we have had students that instructors have literally spent hours in the passenger seat going over the coarse until they get it right, some only need a few minutes, we do not move on to the next exercise until they have the current one down, no exceptions! If we are not comfortable with a student at the end of the day, we ask the parents to bring them back again. Seat time is everything!!! Between 8am and 4pm, they are in the drivers seat for about 6 hours and the instructors are pushing them to their individual limits during that time, between 4pm and 5pm it's recital time, the students take their parents for a ride through the course and that's were we get our reward, watching the parents in awe as well as the kids with big smiles on their faces and we know our efforts are saving lives! (What I observed in some other schools is the program is 4 hours, from 8am to 12noon with 50 or so students, then again from 1pm to 5pm with another group of 50 - putting 3 students in one car with an instructor and they take turns doing the exercise for a short time then switch drivers) PLEASE NOTE: That is way better than no training at all!!! The difference is a few minutes of seat time in a strange car -vs- many hours in your own car, with individual attention.

(3) We do not waste valuable time on anything other than life saving maneuvers, parents can do that at home, ie: parking, no one has been killed parking! Backing up, nearly 50% of insurance claims are paid out from people backing up, but I don't know of anybody being killed from backing up. If time permits in the future and if we make this a two day school, those type of exercises will be considered.

I DO NOT WANT TO DISCOURAGE ANYONE FROM GOING TO ANY TYPE OF DEFENSIVE DRIVING SCHOOL!!!! I am passionate about what we are doing and I have to do it in a way that I perceive is the best, I look at this as there are public schools going after the masses and will educate them to best of their ability considering the size and then there are smaller private schools that give maximum, individual attention.

Thanks for reading, let us know if we can help with anything and we will come to you area!
Norm