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Do driving penance in your underwear online course defensive driving clinics

February 15, 2007 12:50 am

BY KAFIA HOSH

Once, taking a driver improvement course meant sitting in a classroom all day. Traffic violators who wanted to clean up their records had to give up several weekend hours.

But in the last five years, many of the defensive driving courses have sprouted online versions catered to the busy commuter.

"In the violator courses, there is a trend for that now," said Bud Chauncy, president of the the Driving School Association of the Americas.

And that trend is spreading to the Fredericksburg area, where there are at least four Web-based defensive driving schools, according to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

Shortly after it opened last year, Get U Driving School on Lafayette Boulevard added an online driver-improvement class to its curriculum.

"People just don't want to take the time out of their busy lives to sit in the classroom for eight hours, and they're willing to pay for that convenience," said Carmelita Lockley, the school's owner. "They're in the comfort of their own home."

Reidds.com is another online defensive-driving school, based in Stafford County.

The Web site launched in January 2006 and caters to Stafford and Fredericksburg's commuter population.

"There's a market for it and a demand for it," said Minnette Reid, a former Fairfax County police officer who operates the site.

At Reidds.com, it takes the average student about four hours to complete 11 sessions of the defensive-driving course.

After finishing the class, students take a 50-point multiple-choice test at the nearest Central Rappahannock Regional library branch. Once they pass the exam, Reid personally delivers their certificates and forwards their test scores to DMV, which updates driving records.

The self-paced design of an online course allows more time flexibility and is "absolutely up to that person and their schedule," Reid said.

While convenience is the biggest selling point for online driving schools, they still lack the human interaction found in the classroom.

"It's harder to change driver behavior online," said Chauncy, a 14-year driving school instructor. "In person, you got them. You can read faces."

And even Lockley warned that Web-based courses aren't made for everyone.

"Everybody has a different style of learning," she said. "The course is not for someone that requires more of a hands-on learning environment."

But as technology evolves and commuters are pressed for time, some driving experts predict that classroom instruction will eventually go extinct.

"I assume that online is going to be the way to go," said John White, who runs Drivesafe1.com, a nonprofit defensive-driving school based in Fredericksburg. "Everybody is computer literate," he said. "It's a different day, different generation."

Kafia Hosh: 540/735-
Email: 1977khosh@freelancestar.com