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Toyota Driving Expectations Offers New Approach to Teen Driving Education

Program Teaches Teens and Parents Defensive Driving Techniques via Real-World Scenarios


NEW YORK, March 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Teen drivers make up only
6.6 percent of licensed drivers, but constitute 14 percent of accidents and
related deaths. Sixteen-year-olds have the highest crash rate of any age
and are three times more likely to die in a car crash than the average
driver. In an effort to improve these odds, Toyota announced today it is
continuing its national program to promote safe driving among teens, Toyota
Driving Expectations. This unique program, offered free of charge, is
designed to teach teens and parents alike about defensive driving
techniques against a backdrop of real-world scenarios.

While many states and schools offer some form of driver's education,
and many states now require a "provisional" or "graduated" driver's license
for those under the age of 18, it's the real-world distractions that can be
the most dangerous to teen drivers. Toyota Driving Expectations goes beyond
what is currently taught in typical driver training classes in order to
help teens identify and react to dangerous driving situations. To better
understand the critical relationship between distractions and reaction
time, teens and parents navigate a driving course while drinking water,
listening to loud music and talking on a cell phone. They also experience
hard braking maneuvers on wet and dry pavement and maneuver through
multiple slalom driving courses under the watchful eyes of professional
drivers.

"Toyota is committed to providing teens with the tools they need to be
better prepared on the road and to become better drivers," said Michael
Rouse, Toyota's corporate manager of national philanthropy and community
affairs. "Since its inception in 2004, more than 4,000 teens and parents
have successfully completed the Toyota Driving Expectations program, which
was developed after several pilots and valuable feedback from teens,
parents and the National Safety Council."

Another unique aspect of Toyota Driving Expectations is that a parent
or guardian must accompany the teen driver to the four-hour program.
Parents and teens are split into separate groups for part of the course,
allowing parents to learn about vehicle safety technology, defensive
driving and how to design and set realistic expectations for their teen.
The program concludes with teens and parents reuniting to develop a safe
driving contract to be put into practice when the families return home.

The National Safety Council has been involved with the Toyota program
since the beginning and has provided input on curriculum development. The
program includes elements of the Council's signature programs including the
Defensive Driving Course-Alive at 25 and Teen Driver: A Family Guide to
Teen Driver Safety.

"Toyota Driving Expectations provides teens with important skill
development opportunities while providing parents with the knowledge and
tools to keep their teens safe," said John Ulczycki, director of the
Transportation Safety Group of the National Safety Council. "Teens will
develop specific driving skills and a better understanding of how to deal
with peer issues and situations that can affect their driving and lead to
crashes. Parents will learn about the risks associated with teen drivers,
how to better manage those risks and how to be an effective coach for their
teen driver."

Toyota Driving Expectations is a free program and is being offered at
the following locations in 2007:

-- Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, NJ, 4/13 - 4/15
-- Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, IL, 4/20 - 4/22
-- DTE Energy Music Center, Clarkston, MI, 4/27 - 4/29
-- Santa Anita Race Track, Arcadia, CA, 10/12 - 10/14
-- Phoenix International Raceway, Avondale, AZ, 10/19 - 10/21 and
10/26 - 10/28

For more information, please visit
http://www.toyotadrivingexpectations.com

About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE: TM) established operations in North America in 1957 and
will operate 15 manufacturing plants in North America by 2008. There are
more than 1,700 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealerships in North America which
sell more than 2.5 million vehicles a year. Toyota directly employs over
38,000 in North America and its investment here is currently valued at more
than $16.8 billion, including sales and manufacturing operations, research
and development, financial services and design. In 2005, Toyota U.S.A.
contributed nearly $41 million to U.S. philanthropic programs, with a
majority of funding supporting education. The company's main Web site is
http://www.toyota.com.

Media Contact:
Ann Melkessetian
GolinHarris for Toyota
(213) 438-8735
amelkessetian@golinharris.com

Toyota Contact:
Karen Polan
(310) 468-4861
karen_polan@toyota.com


SOURCE Toyota

Sly_dawg19

I really hope they slam NO STREET RACING into these kids heads... I get 16-29 year olds in Buicks, Hondas, and cars there daddy bought them like Evo's and STi's all day trying to race on the streets. It's sad... They don't even care that they could potentially put peoples lives at risk!

This is why we have tracks and long open freeways at 2 am, and new home developments where no one lives yet

bBlover

I'm gonna sign up. Cuz I think I could use the extra practice. I never try to race anyone but its always the other way around.

Big_Bird

this is def a good idea, i learned defensive driving myself, but i wish i could have had these things, or at east known about them

itzminyufoo

i think i wana go too this sounds good
no matter how good of a driver yu are there is always room for improvement

CatalepsicFox

interesting program

paul34

nope, wrong for Florida. Nothing offered here... unless you think $800 for a safety council course counts

ryphlex

Toyota is taking over the world...

And I have no objections to that ^_________^

Winter

i've been driving since i was 13 because my dad had a head injury some time ago so i would have to take over most of the time for long distance driving or when the wheather got bad or when he couldn't control the car quickly enough. got to the point at about age 15 i was taking the car out late at night and going up and down cushman road near my dad's home. any sane person would take about 15 minutes to get from my dad's house to highway 101 in hoodsport and vise versa. takes me about 3-5 minutes depending on if the road is wet or not. after that i started moving onto some of the nonbusy streets in shelton where the rarety of seeing someone else on there was probably 1 in 10,000 durring the DAY, the odds of a car during the night... maybe 1 a month, maybe less. i personaly think that most new drivers should be going out late at night when noone is out and go onto some quiet roads where the only thing you would need to look for is a crossing dear or whathave you. the more practice, the better. hell lately i've been going out the past few nights throwing all the torque the xB has to offer on the wet road here to get use to it's slip grip with and without traction control. all in all like i and others say, the more pratice, the better. just don't be stupid and race on the busy streets. you want to do that, hit the tracks or a quiet and almost never used road when it's DRY.

TheRealBen

This won't stop teen drivers from being cocky, unsafe idiots behind the wheel. Teaching teens skilled driving techniques will just give them an ego because now they will think they are an even better driver than everyone else.

I mean, it's a great idea, but teens have this way about them where they think they are the best driver out there, when they don't even care enough to pay any attention to what's going on around them.

There's a reason they have raised the dirving age and restrictions for teen drivers in many places across the USA. They're not responsible enough to drive a car properly(in general).

Neo_Bahamut_19

I love it when me and my friends go out to cruise on the dual (route 40 in hagerstown MD) and ppl get it all wrong, were just cruising, doing the speed limit (somtimes 5 to 10 under) and all the "cool kids" have to fly down the roads in heavy traffic or between flocks of midnight drunk drivers (that the police never pull over since they would rather pull us "street racers" over even though we dont race that much) to show off for all the "_____es" and to be even that much cooler... even though theyre all in cars bought by their parents... these kids need to not have a drivers class on good driving, but a class on how to mellow out on the road and not drive like @$$holes...

c_rowe

I worked with Karen back at Toyota last summer. Very nice woman, and a great program she's running :-).

Winter

totaly there with you on that. i roll with a couple freinds of mine who are the ages of 22 and 25 and they speed dangerously down busier roads WAY more then they should. then they ook at me and say i'm too slow. no, i have this thing... about staying alive... and i'd like to keep it that way. only time i speed is when i'm on a rad that i know like the back of my hand and that isn't busy nor indangering anyone all at once. ya i like to go fast, but i'm not stupid like the major percentage of us teens... most only care about whats right infront of them and thats a BIG problem. ya gota know whats going on around you, say you're out on your own on a non busy street just hallin butt down the road. theres animals out there too and that is more then enough to screw your self up REAL quick. alot of them just don't relise this or just don't care and it's what gets them selfs and overs killed is thier careless'ness of whats going on around them.

kamileon

Im almost 19, i wonder if i can still go and have some fun wit the cars.
In hs we did the drunk driving thing with golf karts and drunk goggles, i was the only one that went around the course without knocking down the cones haha (has to be cuz im polish) the cop said that even thou i drive good drunk doesnt mean i should do it in real life. Hes right, drinking and driving dont mix.

kamileon

yeap it say 16-19, so im in

Winter

HAH! you too huh? i did that hole goggles and gocart thing at mine too. gotta be the Irish in me? i got the same comment too, "just cause you did it here don't mean you should do it in real life situations."

...i hate cops... YA I SAID IT! WHO EVER IS ONE HERE! not towards anyone who is one here. my area sucks for law enforcement, they don' do anything here unless they see it them selfs. i feel like i'm in elementry school all over again.

TheRealBen

Cops in my area can be jerks when they want to be, but overall, they are just doing their job.

I've never had a bad experience with a cop, even when speeding they would usually be cool enough with me(not others that I know though) and just give me either a warning or a BS no seatbelt ticket.

I did have a good friend get followed all the way home one night and finally got stopped in front of his house for drunk driving because he hit the curb turning down his very narrow side street.

ZTC

i signed up for this a few weeks before i get my liscence

phatcyclist

The best driving lessons I ever learned were from going auto-xing. My friends and I would set up a course with cones in a big parking lot, and push our cars to the driving limits in those situations. You get much more conscious of the car when you do it.

I think this is a great idea for teenagers. I would urge everyone that can go to do so.