About the Clinics
The Shelly Cohen Accident Avoidance Training (SCAAT) is a hands-on, in-car training program that focuses on developing skills needed to avoid potential accidents, as well as educating young drivers on the value of safe driving, using a seatbelt, and not using the cell phone when driving. The 120-minute classroom session focusing on vehicle and human dynamics is followed by the Arie Luyendyk in-car instruction in accident avoidance and defensive driving maneuvers.
SCAAT will not accept a young driver without a parent. To derive success from the training, the teen and adult must work as a team while sharing information and the experiences created during the four hour in-car clinic experience. The adults are coaches to their teens.
We train parents and teens in the same process as followed for all athletic skills development. We start with an understanding of the psychology and physics of crashes, vehicle dynamics, human responses and the likely outcomes of failure.
In the four hour in-car training session, developing the eyes for early warnings and for solution searches is the starting point, followed by the use of the steering wheel from its typically limited use in crash conditions to its full use. Next we move on to the early, powerful and effective use of the brake system in the car. All research on this issue states that young drivers are not taught and therefore cannot effectively use their brakes in their early crash experiences. The program ends with an accident avoidance maneuver test to see how well teens have assimilated to the system and techniques.
The four hours are the longest continuous driving session these drivers have ever experienced. It is a combination of tight space, slow speed, and deep focus followed by higher speed, quick-response exercises which stretch their awareness and understanding of the “real world” they face. What before may have been just “surviving” in the traffic stream, they now are managing themselves and their vehicle.
