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Teens try new spin on driver's ed

Young motorists learn survival skills from masters of the asphalt.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS, Times Staff Writer
Published October 1, 2007

Matt Gronau, 17, takes a braking turn on wet pavement while instructor Pierre Kleinubing talks him through it. Students learned how to handle high-speed skids and spinouts.
	[Ken Helle | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Ken Helle | Times] "I don't want the first time he goes into a skid to be on the highway," said the mother of one Driver's Edge participant. About 400 young drivers took part in the free program.

OLDSMAR - Andrew Gingras stepped on the gas, and the BMW speed climbed to 50 mph. The engine's roar grew louder and louder, and the 15-year-old showed no sign of stopping.

"God!" yelled his backseat passenger, 16-year-old Stephanie McNiel.

"Brake!" Mike Speck commanded from the passenger seat.

Andrew stomped on the antilock brakes. The tires scraped the street. Seat belt squeezing tight to his chest, Andrew jolted the car into an abrupt stop.

"Good job!" said Speck, a race car driver and, for today, Andrew's driving teacher.

Over the weekend, about 400 teenagers at Tampa Bay Downs experienced a similar crash course during Driver's Edge, a free educational nationwide tour for young drivers that teaches real-life emergency techniques and driver safety.

A quarter of them poured into the air-conditioned tent for the Sunday morning session. Sleepy-eyed, the teenagers sipped free Starbucks coffee. Their parents perused pamphlets full of teen driving statistics.

Every 19 seconds, a young driver crashes a car. Every day, 20 young drivers wind up in fatal accidents. More 16- to 20-year-olds are killed in car crashes than by drugs, guns and violent crimes combined.

Blasting the Black Eyed Peas' Let's Get it Started, flat-screen televisions showed celebrities involved in car accidents.

Harrison Ford got the scar on his chin when he was 21 years old, crashing his car while trying to put on his seat belt. TLC singer Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes was thrown from a car in Honduras and died. And Paris Hilton drove drunk.

A panicked 911 call to the Las Vegas police replaced the music. Video footage showed a car wrapped around a telephone pole, in an accident that killed two out of five teenage passengers. The camera moved in on a girl in the hospital bed, barely able to speak.

"You don't realize it till it happens to you," she said. "And it can happen to you."

The screen dimmed. Everyone was fully awake now. Race car driver Jeff Payne took the mike.

"Quite honestly, it just sucks to be you," he said. People see teens as reckless, immature. "For some of you in here, that may be true."

They laughed. He told them people their age win Olympic medals, fly planes, fight wars. But when it comes to driving, they just don't get the same training.

"Driver's education in this country is sort of a joke," he said. "We aren't really taught how to drive. We're taught how to pass the test."

Not this morning.

The teens were schooled on the anatomy of brakes, what makes cars skid, what rollovers look like. Race car drivers taught them how to turn without oversteering and how to brake properly.

Joe Wilkinson zoomed off and made a sharp right turn on wet pavement, spinning out. The 16-year-old's hands danced around the wheel, his eyes glued to two cones. The object: regain control of the car.

His tires screeched and smoked. The smell of burning rubber filled the air.

"I'm glad it's not my car," his mom, Julie Spencer, said from a safe distance.

Spencer didn't like that her son got only 15 minutes of behind-the-wheel practice during his high school driver's education class, so she made him repeat it twice, in the summer. He's still a little jerky with the brakes, she said.

"I've been looking for a class like this for two years," said Spencer, of Safety Harbor. "I don't want the first time he goes into a skid to be on the highway."

Less than a month ago, a teen driver lost control of his car and spun out in St. Petersburg. His 14-year-old passenger, Northeast High School freshman Raquel Carreras, died.

Stephanie McNiel had another fatal accident in mind.

Her East Lake High School classmate, T.J. McPhee-Barry, died in a crash in March when the Mustang he was riding in veered into the path of an oncoming car.

Stephanie has been driving for about a year, but hasn't gotten her driver's license yet. She was scared. And the 16-year-old said her school's driver's ed program didn't make her feel prepared.

So she got into the BMW driver's seat Sunday and buckled up.

"Floor it!" Speck called from the passenger's seat. "Go, go, go!"

Eyes set dead ahead, she took off. At her instructor's command, she stepped on the brakes, and brought the almost 2-ton machine to a safe stop.

Out of the car, in front of the rest of the students, Speck commended Stephanie.

"Your focus was razor-sharp. It was pretty cool to watch," he said, adding that if we all drove with that kind of concentration all the time, we'd be safe.

Stephanie walked away from the lesson and said she felt ready for her driver's license.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or 813 226-3354.

[Last modified September 30, 2007, 22:02:34]