The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), an organization representing state highway safety offices, cited parental involvement as the most important factor in keeping young drivers safe on the road: "While development and behavior issues coupled with inexperience impact teen crash risk, parents play a critical role in helping teens survive their most dangerous driving years."
OUR PROGRAM
Parent Coaching System by Top Driver
The Parent Coaching System by Top Driver has been designed to help you and your new driver combat the top causes of novice driver collisions as reported by the Centers for Disease Control (cdc.gov). Studies show that up to 50% of new drivers will be involved in a collision in their first year due primarily to the following “Danger Zones”:
Driver Inexperience
Distracted Driving
Driving with Teen Passengers
Driving at Night
Reckless Driving
Impaired Driving
Drowsy Driving
Improper Use of Seat Belts
The two courses making up the program have been developed in association with Mike Pehl, a 30 year veteran crash investigator and driving educator to directly address these Danger Zones. His passion for teaching parents and new drivers how to keep them safe through strategies to last a lifetime and Top Drivers commitment to Driver Intelligence have inspired this one-of-kind driver education initiative. Together as a team, we can all reduce the risk of your teen driver becoming another statistic through excellent training, lots of supervised driving and maintaining awareness.
The first course, Coaching from the Passenger Seat is a pre-license tool which will help parents to overcome the number one danger zone…Driver Inexperience. The only way to decrease the chances of a collision due to this Danger Zone is to give your new driver as much practice as possible in the Instruction Permit stage so they are prepared for any situation, road condition or challenge they encounter when they start driving on their own. This course is a step-by-step guide of how to safely and effectively supervise your teen’s “practice sessions”. Narrated by veteran crash investigator and driving educator, Mike Pehl, this video series is engaging and informative and can be taken at your own pace based on progress and time put into supervised driving.
Course curriculum includes the following step-by-step videos:
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The Ground Rules
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The Safety Checklist
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First Time in Gear
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Fine Tune the Basics
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The First Road Trip
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Head on the Freeway
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Master the Country Roads
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Keep it Moving
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Parallel Parking and 90 Degree Backup
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Defensive Driving Mindset
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License Day
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Start Early and Never Stop
Online Course 1 - Coaching from the Passenger Seat
A Guide to Effective Supervised Driving for Parents
The collision reduction course, Danger Zone Training, is the first of its kind and combines a revolutionary spaced-learning technique with great tips and tricks, real life videos and stories. Your teen will be given access to a new online lesson (6-12 minutes long) every month for six months. Each one of these short videos discusses one or more of the danger zones, why they cause collisions and strategies on how to reduce the risk if your teen finds themselves in one of these situations. The learning technique of watching short “bite-sized” lessons at regular intervals has proven very effective for the retention of information over time. In extensive studies with professional drivers, this training has shown average collision reductions of 35% in high-risk organizations!
Course curriculum includes the following videos:
Month 1 - Seatbelts and Airbags
Month 2 - Impaired/Distracted Driving
Month 3 - Avoiding Common Crashes
Month 4 - Drowsy/Night Driving
Month 5 - Driving with Other Teens
Month 6 - Aggressive Driving
The video shown here contains clips taken from a AAA Traffic Safety Foundation study which followed 1700 new drivers (who knew they were being videotaped), during their first six months of driving. As you will see this is the primary reason that Top Driver goes beyond traditional driver education and offers these types of valuable resources to our students and their parents and guardians!
(Notice in all of these situations that distractions cause the situation but driver inexperience plays a major part in how they react...)
Online Course 2 - Danger Zone Training
Collision Reduction Training for Teens
"This driver training course makes it easy for a parent to teach and keep the teen interested. Mike's stories and insights are practical and compelling. My son even liked the course and enrichment activities because "it was not boring". We liked it because we were making him a safer driver."
- Colleen
"An excellent course! I especially approve of the common sense, step-by-step instructions presented in such a calm manner!! I highly recommend for parents who are planning to teach their teens to drive."
- Diana
"It is absolutely top-notch...the best of the best! Mike's delivery is so real, conversational, direct and firm from a caring heart...it is obvious this is his passion. WOW!! We are super impressed!!"
- Angie
"As the mother of a new Top Driver, I find that this is AWESOME!!! THANK YOU!!"
- Cathleen