By Gary Anderson

Driving Passions

With the long days of summer, we can fondly remember our teen-age years cruising around with friends, enjoying the freedom of our new drivers’ licenses.

Then we remember that it’s now our children who are out there cruising. And we remember the cruel statistic that more teen-agers die in auto accidents than from any other cause.

Since we can’t keep our teens off the roads, the least we can do is make sure they have the best driver training available. And believe me, good driving isn’t taught by part-time instructors at the Acme Driving School.

There is a better way.

Three different advanced driving schools in our area offer courses every adult can profit from; for teen-agers, it might literally be the difference between life and death.

Instructors at Thunder Hill Race Track north of Sacramento offer a Street Driving Skills course. For $175, the student gets a full day’s training in his or her (or the parents’) own car on a closed portion of the Thunder Hill track. The day includes a classroom session and six 30-minute driving sessions. An experienced instructor rides with each student to offer suggestions and critique techniques. Each driving session is followed by a debriefing session and opportunities to watch other students.

Thunder Hill training focuses on driving and cornering skills at real-world speeds. Through the day, students improve their ability to drive smoothly and control their cars, even in emergency situations. Sooner or later, each student discovers what it’s like to lose control in a skid or spin. This may be embarrassing, but the worst that can occur is that the car will spin out into the grass. Through the training, students learn the capabilities and limits of their own cars and their own driving ability.

At Sears Point Raceway near Sonoma, Russell Racing gives its Highway Survival driving course. The course lasts five hours, costs $385, and is taught in Russell’s own school cars on the broad parking lots next to the track. Each course includes a classroom discussion of proper driving techniques, followed by four one-hour sessions of in-car practice.

The first session teaches students how to control a vehicle under panic braking conditions, with and without ABS systems. The second session teaches students how to change lanes rapidly and safely. In this exercise, the student learns how to maintain control of the car while making forced lane changes at increasing speeds. Students learn that they can drive around potential accidents, perhaps the most important safety maneuver on the highway.

In the third session, students drive a car that can mechanically simulate skids and spins. Students learn how to steer into a skid to maintain control and what it feels like to be totally out of control in a spinning car. The course concludes with an auto-cross. Here, the student is timed driving a curving course, marked off by rubber pylons, to get a feeling for vehicle dynamics as well as to have a little fun.

At Laguna Seca Race Track near Monterey, Skip Barber instructors teach a Driving Skills course similar to the Russell course, but provides a full day or even two days of driving experience. The Barber course costs $635 for one day or $1,235 for two days, with students practicing accident avoidance, high-speed braking and skid control in Barber’s cars and trucks. Skip Barber offers a little icing on the cake; students usually drive its auto-cross in one of the school’s Vipers.

I’ve taken each of these courses and found they all improve driving skill, even for an experienced driver. The instructors are exceptional; they’re patient, articulate and enthusiastic about teaching good driving.

Since the courses started 10 years ago, AAA and others have compared the accident records of students with those who have just had standard driver training. Every study has shown that students who take these courses have significantly lower accident rates than those who haven’t had them.

Rather than giving graduates the idea that they are the next Jeff Gordon, these courses actually have the opposite effect. Students discover that good driving, especially in emergency situations, isn’t as easy as they thought.

But in these courses, the car just knocks down a few cones and there’s an instructor to quietly review what went wrong and help the student do better next time.

This is much better than losing control for the first time on a city street and running into a street light or another car. In that instance, the review will be done by a policeman and there may not be another opportunity to do better.

For more information about these courses, contact Thunderhill Street Driving Course (phone 888-995-7222 or Web www.Thunderhill.com), Russell Racing Highway Survival (800-733-0345 or www.RussellRacing.com) or Skip Barber Driving Skills (800-221-1131 or www.SkipBarber.com).

Anderson is editor and publisher of British Car Magazine, published bimonthly and distributed internationally from offices in Los Altos (949-9680; www.britishcar.com).