“Speed is the number one factor that causes crashes out on the highway,” says Scott Robertson, a professional driver with the DriveTeam Training Center in Cuyahoga Falls.

CUYAHOGA FALLS — Pro drivers say a few simple tactics or techniques can greatly reduce your chances of a winter accident.

“When people do not decrease their speed when there is snow or ice on the road, you’re going to end up with something like you had on I-90.”

On Wednesday, a stretch of Interstate 90 in both directions had to be closed in Lake County when snowy and icy conditions contributed to more than half a dozen accidents involving dozens of vehicles.  Hundreds more motorists were stranded in traffic for up to 5 hours.

Robertson ran through a series of demonstrations on DriveTeam’s test track, which was coated with a slick layer of snow. Using a 2005 Toyota Camry with anti-lock brakes, Robertson slammed on the brakes at certain speeds and measured the distance it took to stop.

At 40 miles per hour, the car came to a full stop at 230 feet, then at 250 feet in a second test when the track was slightly icier.  By reducing the speed to 30 miles per hour, stopping distances of between 95 and 110 feet were realized, less than half the distance at 40 mph.

“Speed is the number one contributor to accidents whether it’s on a side street, a state route, or a highway,” Robertson commented.

Then, by reducing driving speed to 20 miles per hour, the Camry came to a stop at an average of 33 feet, even with the DriveTeam test track becoming increasingly slick.

Robertson and DriveTeam also had two other strategies they say are simple but very effective in reducing the chances of wintertime accident in Northeast Ohio.

“The second things you want to do is increase your following distance. That’s one of the other factors that was involved in the I-90 crash.”

“And the third,” he concluded, “and one of the most important, is vehicle maintainance. You want to have excellent tires on your vehicle at all times.”

Story by: Dick Russ

WKYC-TV

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Terry Moir of Cleveland’s WKYC Channel 3 moderates a panel discussion about safe and effective ways to teach teens to drive. Panelist are Scott Robertson HR Director and Teen Driving Instructor at DriveTeam, Inc. and Anne Marie Hayes, teen driving expert and author of 3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive. www.yourteenmag.com

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Scott Robertson, a teen driving instructor with the DriveTeam, Inc. provides tips on how to talk to your teen before they begin to drive.

Raising a Safe Driver Panel Discussion for Parents

Tuesday, Oct. 23 BMW Cleveland Solon

Register: YourTeenMag.com/Register

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Written by
Dave Summers

COLUMBUS — Ohio teens could not use cellphones or other electronic devices while driving under a bill sent Tuesday to the governor.

Statewide Texting Ban

The House voted 82-12 to pass the bill. The Senate previously approved it, and Gov. John Kasich is expected to sign it.

All drivers would be banned from texting, though young drivers could more easily be pulled over for it.

The bill would make texting a secondary offense for adults. That means drivers could be ticketed for typing messages only if they were first pulled over for another offense, such as running a red light.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, the measure would be among the nation’s broadest in terms of teen distracted driving restrictions. The organization says texting while driving is already prohibited in 38 states.

ANN SANNER, Associated Press

Associated Press/WKYC-TV

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 Teen Driving Programs

President of DriveTeam Ken Stout and President of Crestmont Auto Group show how their driving courses puts teens to the test. You can check out their upcoming programs at crestmontcadillac.com or crestmonthyundai.com.

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Senior Driving

Grannie, age 94, hasn’t driven a car since she was 20 years old. DriveTeam, Inc and their Senior division was able to help Grannie get back on the road!

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Driving School Safety

CLEVELAND — Faulty brakes. Inadequate instruction. Crowded classrooms. These are some of the violations state inspectors found at local schools used to teach your teenager how to drive, a Channel 3 News investigation found.

The state says no violation can be too small when it comes to protecting a child learning how to drive.

Just ask Susan Sigman, of Streetsboro. Her 16-year-old daughter was driving 55 m.p.h. in a school vehicle when its brakes failed on a busy road.

“I assumed the driver training schools were regulated and very safe, especially when we are going through the schools and paying hundreds of dollars,” Sigman said. “I never got a reasonable explanation as to how this could happen.”

The Ohio Department of Public Safety has issued 45 violations to local driving schools since 2006. The state conducts inspections of teen driving schools every other year — looking into everything from records to instruction manuals to building conditions — and it also checks their vehicles every year.

Ken Stout, who operates a driving school in Cuyahoga Falls, says schools that can’t meet minimum standards put students in danger.

“It’s wrong,” said Stout, owner of DriveTeam Inc. “I would hope that folks in our business would look at every car that goes on the road and understand that’s your son or daughter that’s in that car.”

The state requires eight hours of road training, but one student attending J.N.O. Drivers Enterprises simply had to drive around downtown Sandusky to get her diploma.

The state yanked the school’s license in March.

Parents could try asking if a school’s been cited. But three schools Channel 3 News visited undercover denied having violations.

At National Drivers Training in Solon, an employee said: “Oh no. We’ve never failed inspection. They wouldn’t be used.”

But state records show inspectors failed one vehicle at the school for a frozen brake pedal. Owner Bernard Ralls said the violations are “just words on paper” and that he fixed the brake pedal right away.

“It means to me I want to know what the problem is and let’s get it squared away,” Ralls said. “It doesn’t mean I failed an inspection.”

Ralls also owns Town and Country Driving School, where an employee also denied the school had any vehicle violations.

The state found three Town and Country school vehicles in need of repair. “That’s three cars out of 32,” Ralls said. “That means the rest of them they couldn’t find anything wrong.”

At 1st Choice Driving School in Cleveland Heights, an inspector ordered one car off the road. The school’s co-owner said it wasn’t a big deal and that it was immediately fixed.

Kim Myers, of Richfield wishes she had checked with the Better Business Bureau before enrolling her daughter at Heights Driving School II in Fairlawn.

“Finding out they had a rating of ‘F’ disturbed me,” Myers said. She did not know the state suspended the school’s Ravenna license for a week for not having enough table space, textbooks or in-class instruction.

“Who are they putting in the car with my daughter?” Myers said. “Now I’m worried.”

Heights Driving School II owner Charisse Pflueger said the state violation happened under the previous owner, who “instead of spending so much money to fight it, we just went down and took the punishment.”

Pflueger also said she’s tried to work with the Better Business Bureau to resolve complaints, but parents don’t want to hear that the school’s contract says it has six months to finish training the students.

Parents are urged to question driving schools about violations, look at cars and sit in on a class.

AAA also said parents should find out whether the school uses a fixed driving route because that helps teachers focus on instruction and helps prevent abuses, such as teachers running errands.

In the view of state driving exam supervisor, violations should not be taken lightly. “They should not get a violation,” said Mary Kilbane, supervisor of the state Highway Patrol driver testing facility in Mayfield Heights.

“Their vehicles should be in excellent working condition.”

© 2009 WKYC-TV

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By Kathie Kroll
March 17, 2009, 3:22PM
Road conditions can be awful in Northeast Ohio. You’re nearly three times more likely to get into a weather-related wreck here than in the rest of the country, accident data show.

For Ken Stout, those statistics are an opportunity. Harsh winters, rainy summers and aging roads make driving around here significantly harder than in sunny, dry areas. People in this region need to become better drivers, said the president of the Drive Team driving school in Cuyahoga Falls.

DriveTeam, Inc. which since 1991 offered skid-recovery courses and other advanced driving classes in the parking lot of Blossom Music Center, recently moved into its own facility — a 12-acre site with lots of open pavement for vehicle dynamics, crash avoidance, and skid recovery.

The new location has sprinklers built into the pavement to create slick conditions. It also has three vehicles that simulate skids — a passenger car, a small commercial truck and a tractor-trailer.

Few other driving schools in Ohio or elsewhere boast those capabilities. The Mid-Ohio School in Lexington, south of Mansfield, periodically offers skid training at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course racetrack.

“The general public does not have a high level of skill behind the wheel,” Stout said. “We train drivers with hands-on experience — what a bad situation feels like and how to recover from it.”

Drive Team’s biggest customers are fire and police departments and corporate fleet managers. Their drivers spend more time on the road than typical commuters, and fleet operators can get significant breaks on insurance rates by offering advanced training, Stout said.

But with the new facility in place, the company is more aggressively marketing its services to teen drivers and their parents, senior citizens and members of the general driving public. Fliers for the company’s teen-oriented courses focus on how to “challenge students to understand the limits of their vehicles, and themselves, in a controlled environment.”

Most drivers could benefit from being more aware of the dangers of bad-weather driving, say public safety officials.

Drivers in the seven-county area that includes Cleveland are nearly three times more likely to get into a weather-related traffic accident than people in other parts of the country SOURCES: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Ohio Dept. of Public Safety Ohio State Highway Patrol safety spokesman Sgt. Darrin Blosser said that given Ohio’s treacherous winter road conditions, “People need to allow themselves extra time to reach their destinations.”

Accident investigators regularly see two common factors in weather-related crashes — excessive speed and failing to leave enough space between vehicles, he said.

And don’t expect your car to save you from doing something stupid. Advanced technologies such as stability control and anti-lock brakes can help prevent accidents, but they can’t overcome the basic laws of physics, said Rae Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. If you’re driving too fast on slick roads, computers won’t save you.

“People think that just because they have stability control or all-wheel drive, they can do whatever they want on snow,” Tyson said. “All-wheel drive helps you with acceleration, but it doesn’t do anything to stop you when you hit the brakes.”

While the state does not recommend or endorse winter skills driving courses, Blosser said Ohio residents should anticipate and prepare for poor conditions.

Stout said the best way to prepare yourself for winter driving is to get a real sense of what it feels like to go into an uncontrolled skid and learn how to handle the situation.

Last month, when a thick layer of snow covered the company’s test tracks, that was easy. Teaching ice-driving techniques on warm, sunny days presents a challenge.

One of Drive Team’s skid vehicles is a Chevrolet Impala that has outriggers attached under the front and rear axles. At the ends of the outriggers are four small motors attached to wheels. The driving instructor can use the motors to lift the front or the rear of the car slightly off the road, simulating the loss of control you get when your car wheels slip.

It’s one thing to be told how to recover from a skid, said George Busey, a retired Macedonia police officer and an instructor at Drive Team. It’s another to feel those wheels slip away and have to find a way of steering an out-of-control, 2-ton beast.

“Always try to look where you want to go. Your hands will follow your eyes,” Busey said.

Recovering from skids is not a mental exercise, he said. It’s more of a physical reaction. Drivers often have to fight the urge to slam on the brakes or jerk the wheel. Classroom instruction can tell you what to do, but if you haven’t experienced the conditions or the adrenaline rush that accompanies them, Busey said, it’s too easy to forget those lessons.

“You need to learn the limits of what you can do and what your car can do,” he said.

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