Teens get lessons in practical safe driving
Eighteen go through the special Teen Vehicle Operations Course program.
A dozen and a half teenagers from the Rome area spent their Saturday morning in a class room, but not in their usual school. The class work was part of a specialized Teen Vehicle Operations Course and the class work was followed by some hands on the steering wheel out at Richard B. Russell Regional Airport.
“We’re taking a teen from the driver education mindset to a driver training and survival mindset,” said Woodrow Gaines, of Fear This Inc. “We do specific exercises to teach teen critical skills not to panic and not to crash.”
The coursework is essentially the same thing a police cadet would learn at the police academy, and in fact are taught by certified police instructors. The teens are taught braking exercises, off-road recovery and a cone course that sharpens a teens ability to maintain control of the automobile.
A parent is required to sit in on the program with the teenagers. Superior Court Judge-elect Kay Ann Wetherington was there with her son, Marc Wetherington, 16. She said getting a refresher on things like who has the right of way at a four-way stop are great lessons to learn. Her son Marc said he was glad his mother got him to take the course and was really looking forward to testing out his one year driving skills on the grounds at the airport during the afternoon session.
“I learned a lot about braking and ways to stop and not run off the road,” Marc said.
Neely Raper went through the session with his daughter, Holly, 16. He said the classroom session was eye-opening.
“It was a great experience. There were a lot of things that we were taught when we were young that we may have forgotten about or take for granted. It was a great refresher,” Raper said.
Gaines said the biggest problem that virtually all young drivers face is what is often referred to as over-correction.
“In reality there is no correction because there is no training behind it, that’s the leading cause of fatalities across America,” Gaines said.
Gaines has been teaching the course for 15 years and has brought the class to Rome for the past six years in cooperation with the Rome Police and the airport.