How Toyota will make your teen a better driver

With the idea of making teen's better drivers, Toyota offers its Driving Expectations program. Toyota is using the program to better educate teen drivers and hopes to cut the high number of teens killed in auto crashes. You wouldn't know it but auto crashes are the number one killer of teens in the United States.

The idea behind the Driving Expectations program is to place teen drivers in real-world situations, with instruction coming from driving courses and classroom sessions. Real-world distractions have proven to be the most dangerous to teen drivers. This free program is geared to help teen's identify and react to dangerous driving situations.

Teen drivers and their parents are taught to better understand the relationship between distractions and reaction time. To help make it clear, teen drivers and their parents navigate a driving course while drinking water, listening to loud music and talking on a cell phone. In addition, under the watchful eye of professional drivers, they take part in hard braking maneuvers on wet and dry pavement and negotiate multiple slalom driving courses.

According to Toyota, their program is endorsed by the National Safety Council and the Federal Highway Administration, and to date, more than 5,500 teens and their parents across the country have participated.

Upcoming events for 2007 are at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Arizona on the weekends of October 5-7 and 12-14, with an additional event in Arcadia, California October 19-21. The first 2008 event will be held in spring of next year.