Driver Safety Education Blog

Dave Hancock is Alberta's Minister of Education. Here is a little bit of background. He is the youngest of seven children. He grew up in several different small towns in northern BC and Alberta like, Fort Resolution, Hazelton, Fort Vermilion. His parents valued education and he finished school in Fort Vermilion. All seven brothers and sisters graduated from post-secondary institutions. Dave Hancock became a lawyer before entering politics. More about the Minister can be found here or on his official government website.

He started an initiative called, Inspiring Education - A Dialogue with Albertans.

From the Minister's letter to those taking part in Inspiring Education Community Conversation:
Inspiring Education is not a traditional government consultation. With this initiative, we’re taking a very different approach from what we’ve done in the past. The process in this community conversation kit will challenge you to share your ideas and experiences, and it asks you to listen to and consider the perspectives of others. This process will give us the kind of insight we need to create an education system that will meet the hopes, dreams and aspirations of all Albertans.

The latest (seventh session) report is here. Here is a link to the official Inspiring Education website.

I was fortunate enough to attend one of the day-long sessions, and I felt like something was actually being done. The participants were being listened to and I believe the Minister is very serious about this project. After all, it will help him and his staff and Alberta Education come up with a 20 year plan.

Very worthwhile, and I applaud the Minister for his "forward thinking" in starting and encouraging this project.

This man is on the road a lot and I personally don't know if even I could keep up with his schedule. If you want to keep up with him you can try his Twitter updates.

Good for you, Dave!

Cheers - Mike

PS: Perhaps Driver Education can take a larger part, as almost all kids will be drivers someday.

New teen drivers can help themselves become better drivers by simply "saying it out loud". This means when driving, say traffic signs out loud, cars parked (such as; approaching a parked car, there is a stop sign ahead, or stop lights ahead, there is a speed limit sign that says Speed Limit 30, etc.). This helps drivers become more aware of their surroundings. This helps them react faster because they see and understand what is coming, rather than it being a surprise. Drivers will see more, like kids that could dart into traffic, and drivers who don't signal their intentions.

Try it. It works very well.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike

I found some information for teens to help them drive smarter and better.

The first item comes from the insurance company, Allstate. It is called, Prepare Your Teen Driver.

For teens who like to get the word out, this website offers a lot of tips, ideas, graphics and stats for teens.

Autoblog has an article called, Misguided youth: Teen driving distractions The article is good once you get past the ads.

Here is more from the eHow website. They also have more links to teen driving articles. This one is called, How to be a Smart Teen Driver.

And again for teens, a good article (and many ads) called, How attitudes and peer influence affect teen driving. It is a good article with content mostly from teens and compiled by Allstate.

And finally, here is one just for parents. It is called, Smart Parent Involvement Key in Preventing Teen Driving Deaths.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike

Do teens need driver education? Yes, in my opinion. And experience as well. Welcome parents! Teens seem to learn best from their parents, both bad and good habits. That's where outside sources of education comes in - to help correct the bad habits, and emphasize the good habits.

Here is an interesting article about teen driver education, A Rebuttal to Skeptics of Teen Driver Education, from the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association.

From the US DOT we have this article, Traditional Driver Licensing vs. Graduated Driver Licensing. The Index page is here. This is a very good resource.

From teens themselves, comes this report, National Young-Driver Survey: Teen Perspective and Experience With Factors That Affect Driving Safety

There are many online resources to choose from and this one seems very appropriate, The Anatomy of Crashes Involving Young Drivers from the National Academies Press (National Academy of Sciences, US). You can go from page to page for the complete study. The full table of contents is here.

Finally, from the Traffic Injury Research Foundation Young and New Driver Resource Centre in Ottawa, Canada, this research article, About Driver Education.

Safe Driving...

Cheers - Mike

Today we look at YouTube for help in driving techniques for new drivers.

We start with this one How to Parallel Park. It is short and to the point. Good tips too!

how to park parallel perfectly

How to perform a 2-point turn

Here is How to perform a 3-point turn

How to steer a car

Hand-to-Hand Steering Method

I didn't include the videos on my page. They are linked to the applicable YouTube pages.

There is quite a bit more there as well. Some funny ones too.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike