43
Road Trip
Students try out ‘tire rack street survival’ program
By Bob Jackson
BOARDMAN
Even though it’s officially spring, Brandon Cane is getting ready for driving on snow and ice.
He practiced Saturday by driving in simulated slippery conditions on a sunny afternoon.
“The more I know, the better prepared I’ll be,” the 16-year-old Seneca Valley (Pa.) High School sophomore said.
Brandon was one of a half-dozen teenage drivers who participated in the Tire Rack Street Survival program at Boardman Park. The program improves driver competence through hands-on experiences in real-world driving situations.
“Driver-education teaches [kids] the basics, and that’s all fine and dandy,” said spokesman Reed Kryder. “We teach them what to do when things get out of control in emergency situations.”
After a short classroom session, Kryder said students learn how to manage everyday driving hazards, obstacles and challenges in a controlled environment on an advanced driving course.
They are instructed in proper braking and skid control, how to control proper braking, and how to avoid accidents entirely. They use their own cars, so the lessons they learn during the program can be more easily transferred to actual driving experiences.
Participants are taught how it feels when an automatic braking system kicks in, and how to react when it does. They are also instructed on how to react on wet, slippery roads, and how to handle curves and how to react to unexpected situations, such as a deer running in front of their car.
“We even blow up an air bag at some point,” Kryder said, noting that it’s done with all participants watching from outside the car. “That usually shocks the hell out of them because they don’t realize the force and the quickness with which that happens.”
Tire Rack’s information says that car crashes are the leading cause of death of American teens, with more than 5,000 teens involved in fatal crashes each year, and an additional 196,000 injured.
Kryder said simple driving errors that are mostly avoidable, but common among young, inexperienced drivers, cause the majority of fatal crashes. He said most young drivers don’t think they need the extra training, which costs $75 per person, because they believe they already know everything about how to drive.
“Honestly, their parents usually force them to come,” he said.
Brandon’s parents, Dave Kellogg and Linda Cane, of Seven Fields, Pa., said they signed up Brandon after hearing about the program from a friend. Brandon has his learner’s permit, but barely drove at all during the winter, Linda said.
“We wanted to prepare him for eventually being on the road on his own,” Linda said.
“It all made sense,” Kellogg said of the program. “What do you do if a deer jumps out in front of you or something like that? We’re hoping this program will help teach him how to react in those situations.”
Brandon said he wasn’t wild about getting out of bed early on a Saturday morning to be in Boardman for the program’s 8 a.m. start, but he realized that the training he received would be valuable once he gets his driver’s license and gets out on the road as a full-time driver.
“I don’t like getting up early, but I don’t want to ever be in an accident,” he said. “It’s definitely worth coming here.”
Besides being behind the wheels of their own cars, participants were seated in the driver’s seat of large vehicles, such as tractor-trailers and school buses, to illustrate how drivers of those vehicles have limited vision of cars behind them, and how difficult it is for large vehicles to stop in a hurry if a car pulls out in front of them.
Tire Rack Street Survival is the largest active nonprofit national driver education program that teaches kids the skills they need to stay alive behind the wheel. Kryder said the organization hopes to have another event here in the fall.