Driving School Blog

With the ice and snow that plagued our region this morning, we are not  likely thinking that spring is right around the corner. That said, very soon, the warming days will begin bringing everyone out from their winter hibernation. This is why our Sixty Seconds of Safety^TM Message for March is focused on pedestrian safety. Of course, pedestrians should always be mindful of vehicles when near or crossing roadways, but we cannot always assume that this will be the case. The increased pedestrian fatalities seen starting in 2010 supported the idea of "distracted walking" becoming a growing problem. The good news is that these figures showed a decline in 2013 (for the first time in years), but this does not change the fact that we must be more vigilant.

We want to remind drivers of these important considerations when it comes to pedestrians:

Here at I Drive Smart, we’re all about Proactive Driving. People throw those words around quite a bit, so it’s probably worth taking a moment to talk about what they really mean. To put it simply, Proactive Driving is about keeping yourself safe on the road. First and foremost, you need to learn how to effectively operate the controls inside your motor vehicle. Secondly, you need to know the rules and regulations that govern how you drive. This is all well and good, but guess what?

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Happy Fourth of July! Whether you will be staying near your home or heading out of town for the holiday, we at I Drive Smart hope you have a relaxing break from work and a healthy amount of fun with family and friends. We also hope everyone is safe and recovering well from the terential storms we had a few nights ago. Hopefully, as power gets restored around the area, life can start to get back to normal. I'd like to take a little time to salute one of our own at IDS. Krista Kennedy, a Montgomery County police officer and one of our "superstar" instructors, was recently featured in an article about Title IX in The Gazette.

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If you've never heard of Leo McCarthy, allow us to introduce him. Mr. McCarthy is a lifelong Butte, Montana resident who has worked in insurance since 1987. That is not what makes this man unique, however. In 2007, Mr. McCarthy lost his daughter, Mariah, when she was struck and killed by a 20-year old drunk driver. Instead of letting his grief get the better of him or seeking revenge, Mr. McCarthy resolved not to allow his daughter to simply become another statistic. Instead, at Mariah's memorial service, he created a remarkable legacy for both himself and his daughter.

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A wise man once wrote that "no one can complete an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process". We see this proverb in action every day of our lives. Our best teachers are those that never seem to stop learning, and our doctors are required to attend continuing education classes throughout their careers. Likewise, we at I Drive Smart believe that driver education is not a one-time event. Instead, we hope that our students will work throughout their lives to become safer and more responsible drivers, and our instructors strive to instill that attitude in our students. One of the most important pieces to successfully continuing your driver education is to keep up-to-date on often-changing traffic laws.

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Those of us that have our driver's license often like to pretend that we were born good drivers, that driver education came naturally to us, and that we passed our licensing test flawlessly. Well, for most of us, that couldn't be farther from the truth. Taking a driving test can be one of the most stressful events of a teenager's young life, and a number of us have failed driving tests as proof of that. Apart from normal anxiety, perhaps a young driver is not typically a great test taker, or perhaps they fear what others might say if they fail the test. Suffice it to say that there are a million reasons that a teen may be overly nervous and fail to perform optimally on their driving test. Don't let that happen to you!

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Graduation season is an exciting time for all those receiving their diplomas and their families. However, given teenagers’ excitement about graduation and the newfound freedom of summer after high school, it is also one of the riskiest times for teen drivers. In this post, we offer some helpful strategies to ensure that your child can have both a safe and fun trip to Beach Week or Senior Week.

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Graduates of medical school are not expected to immediately perform surgery. Instead, they take what they learned through their education and are asked to adapt it to real world scenarios with the help of a more experienced doctor to show them the path. At iDrive, we believe this philosophy should be replicated in other fields, especially something that can be as potentially dangerous as driving.

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In our previous blog entry, we talked about how driving for teens offers freedom, but that responsibility comes with it too.

Teens in New York State, and in several other states across the country, are now faced with the requirement of completing 50 hours of supervised driving, up from the previous 18 required (with 15 of those hours mandated to occur after sunset).

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When you finally reach the point in your life when driving on your own is about to be a reality, a sense of freedom comes about. However, what many teens don’t realize is that being a driver and being "on your own" comes with it added responsibilities.

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