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Involve Yourself: Become a Better Driver

How and why to improve your skills

Created by Scott Wallace

There you are, stuck in traffic on the 405 some Friday afternoon. You've spent a fair share of days behind the wheel of a car, and you think, "I'm good. Real good." Rolling into Silverlake adjacent to visit the Shortstop for a well-deserved beverage, you wheel your doom-mobile into a perfect parallel parking maneuver (six inches from the curb, decent clearance both in front and behind, wheels curbedjust like in San Fran). Afterward, pulling out onto Sunset Blvd., you stop far enough back so pedestrians can pass in front of you, you signal your intentions and wait for the appropriate opportunity before heading back onto the highways and byways of Americahome of the free, land of the brave, parking lot for the insane.

During your reverie, you realize that your automotive training consisted of a few hours of high school era filmage and lectures, perhaps a couple of weeks under the stern tutelage of a parental-unit or, if you were lucky, a fun family friend. Though the advice and exposure to various driving skills have been usefulyou've managed to trundle along all these years with nary a problemhave you ever thought about actively becoming a better driver? Driving is something you've done almost every day since you turned 16, and you'll be doing it for years to come. Certainly it's worth a look at what is availableit could even be fun!

Wising Up

There are quite a number of ways to increase your skills. They range from manufacturers who are starting to offer "performance test-drives," to professional high-performance driving schools to specialized training for either a particular skillevasive/anti-terrorist drivingor a particular kind of driving like off-road adventuring. Stepping up to competitive racing will most certainly give you skills, which you can use on your commute. Even some fairly wild ideas, such as learning to ride a motorcycle or advancing your repair skills, may have that something special you need to help get you involved and committedand will likely pay off in some unintended ways.

Manufacturers

Mazda recently created their "Performance Driving School & National Competition" known as "Rev It Up," which offers a day of instruction and practice in various car control arts, backed up by a timed run through an autocross course to prove the point that we all have something we can learn. BMW and Porsche both offer high-performance instruction for owners of their vehicles, allowing the outer-limit style of driving their cars excel at in a closed-course environment. Land Rover has a class that will not only teach you how to extricate your brand new off-road beast from a muddy bog, but will teach you how to get it stuck in the first place!

Pro Schools

Skip Barber, Bob Bondurant and Jim Russell are just three brand name schools that come to mind. Typically they will offer a deeper and broader selection of courses ranging from "Teen Intro to Driving" classes through full-on race classes, competition certification and even multi-event race seasons! All can instruct you in the fine art of car control; thus, all are valuable to the commuter. But there are other schools out there if these cause you to yawn. How about such specialized instruction as for wanna-be stunt drivers? Or how about anti-kidnapping/terrorist Secret-Service-type driving skills? They're out there, if that's what it takes.

Skills & Focus

Get through the course, as marked by cones placed around a parking lot, as quickly as you can without hitting any cones. Charge through the forest along fire roads, in a driving rain and fog, as fast as you can without launching yourself and your navigator off into a ravine. Racing will teach you how to drive better for the simple reason that the clock does not lie. If you're driving well, you'll be smooth and consistent in your lap times. You will enjoy the time spent on the track, and with the simple practice of observation you will find a better way to do things if there are any other racers to observe. If you are so good that you're at the front, your car will have a big number 1 on the side and everyone will agree that you ARE a good driver!

The great thing about racing is that, unlike commuting, there is a complete focus on the task at handdriving quickly. Everyone around you will be focused on the same thing, and generally willing to help someone who is trying to become better. There are too many class types to describe, but a local racetrack will have classes/instruction for the novice racer, along with instruction for the usual classes that run there. Beyond that, you have many options. Go racing in parking lots around a cone set-up, called Solo, and the SCCA will help you there. Have an interesting older sports car, an MG or Alfa? The local club that supports that make/model will possibly have a racing program with dates at a local track. Racetrack "house schools" are a perfect way to gain basic racing skills and certificationand don't dismiss these skills as being useless on the street. Frankly, any training is better than none and you will definitely learn the benefits of concentration and planning at a race school.

Why?

With the increasing number of distractions that a driver faces every dayfrom which book to read while commuting to how the new makeup looks in the vanity mirror or where to place the extra-grande low-fat mocha frappa-latte with a twist so you can check your e-mail on your handheldisn't it good to know you can choose a more intellectually challenging commuter pastime? You start out by scanning the road ahead as far as you can see trying to identify all the possible dangers you can find. Then, predict which danger will occur when and decide how you would react to said dangers. No, that wasn't an opening for you to cut left across four lanes of traffic, mister! That was ME leaving one car length for every 10 miles an hour! When it comes time to execute that plan, as it so inevitably will, you'll impress yourself with your newfound skills.

Let's drive better out thereit will help everyone involved.

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