Program targets teen motorists

Afsha Bawany

Thursday, July 31, 2003 | 9:30 a.m.

Karen Murphy's son, Matt, is taking his driver's test next month on his 16th birthday. He wants to begin driving to Boulder City High School with the rest of his friends.

But his mother, a Foothill High School math teacher, has seen many of her students get into accidents and is worried her son isn't getting all the lessons in driver's education he needs. She said her son needs to learn more than just the basics of parallel parking and the rules of the road.

"I just think teenage drivers are inexperienced," Murphy said.

Murphy and a host of other parents signed up their children for an alternative driving course called "Driver's Edge," which started its second year of classes Wednesday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Murphy likes that the course provides the students with experience in driving in real-life situations they're going to run into out on the road. The classes can also instruct her son on driving techniques Murphy may have missed while giving her son lessons, she said.

The free four-hour driver's training program is designed for drivers ages 15 1/2 to 21 and involves classroom and behind-the-wheel training. Students learn skid control, evasive lane changes, panic braking and how to drive in unexpected situations.

In conjunction with "Driver's Edge," a new program called H.E.A.T -- Highway patrol Educating Adults and Teens -- also began Wednesday. Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Angie Wolff leads the program with her colleagues to educate the public about the realities of drinking and driving, speeding and other harms of reckless driving.

"They're going nowhere fast," Wolff said. "They think they are invincible."

During "Driver's Edge" lessons, Wolff will be on hand to talk with students about safe driving. She will also have them use fatal vision goggles and go-carts to simulate what it's like to drive drunk.

Erin Breen, director of Safe Community Partnership of Clark County, said 34 Nevadans ages 16 and 17 died in car crashes in which they drove themselves or another teen was driving them in 2001. Breen said she doesn't have the statistics for 2002 yet.

She said the accidents usually occur because of inexperience and lack of attention to driving.

"A combination of the two is deadly," Breen said.

Breen said teens are also more likely to not wear seat belts -- about 80 percent of teenagers involved in car crashes were unbelted.

Those numbers underscore why the driving classes are so important, Breen said. The classes "will take kids a lot further than driver's education. You can learn only so much from a book," Breen said.

During the classes, professional race car drivers take students on the race track and tell students to accelerate as quickly as possible and turn while braking. In another road course, water is sprayed with a fire hose, to give teenagers a chance to learn how to control the car in extreme weather.

This year, seven "Driver's Edge" classes will be held three to four hours each class. To find out more about Driver's Edge, call 877-633-EDGE or visit www.driversedge.org