Friday, March 19, 2010
Couple give beginning drivers a head start
Priscilla Richardson is columnist The Botetourt View. You can contact her at 981-3430 or via e-mail.
Priscilla Richardson
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When young people here reach 15 and a half, they jump up and down -- sometimes internally, but they do it -- with excitement. Why? Because they can now get a learner's permit, with the goal of a driver's license. They look on it as a magic passport to adult freedom, but it's not automatic and it's not quick. They stay in learner's status for a minimum of nine months, then take classes and tests and behind the wheel practice. Two of the people who can help them on their way are Springwood's Grace and Steve Parker, at Advantage Driver Training Inc.
While there are two other behind-the-wheel instructors locally, the Parkers offer the whole nine yards so a young person can complete all the legal requirements with them. Then they also offer the driver improvement class you have to take if you get a speeding ticket, for instance, or fail to stop at a stop sign. Those two offenses, according to Steve Parker, make the most common reason already licenced drivers take that class.
Parker, 55, has lived his entire life in the Roanoke Valley. After two years at Virginia Western, he worked in the automotive business, ending as a service manager for Woodson Pontiac. He also had the good fortune to meet Grace Gilliam, now his wife, an earth science teacher at Lord Botetourt and a lifelong Botetourt resident.
Because, in 2001, Woodson sold the dealership. "And Grace had this wonderful idea about working with some of the youth here. So we took classes to be certified. We took classes to do the classroom portion, and then took improvement classes. We had to take two college classes, one in methods of teaching. We took our classes at Radford in 2002, started our program July 2003."
All this training set them up for a full-time business. They are licensed to "teach everything DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] allows us to teach." It also started them in a business where they need classroom space, which they now have in a building that sits on the Botetourt-Roanoke County line off Route 11.
They must be meeting a need. "We have to schedule months and months ahead. People sign up now for summer classes."
You might think sitting in the passenger seat while a teen drives would be the hardest part of this job. Not so, according to Parker. "Driving with these young people is the easiest part. Trying to keep our schedules organized is the hardest part. These young people are playing sports, are in band, are cheerleaders, in church activities. You have to work around their schedules."
I got one very useful bit of information from taking with Parker. You really should try hard to break your old habit of putting your hands on the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions. Replace those with 8 and 4 o'clock. Ten and two may have been drummed into you when you were taking your driver's ed, but "with newer cars, you don't need this. Air bags can push hands through the windows. And with your hands up high you're more likely to oversteer your car. You can do 85 percent of your driving with your hands down at the bottom of the wheel."
Parker knows the state licensing regulations backward and forward. But his best advice for driver safety on the road? "You need to be courteous to each other, and alert. That would save a lot of people pulling out in front of you, and stop road rage. Just be alert."
