Fla. Sheriff Aims to Improve Teen Drivers' Skills

The Teen Driver Challenge is a program the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office offers several times a year.

Dec. 11, 2011

2 min read

Dec. 10--LITHIA -- While Deputy Paul Alessandri looked on Saturday morning, a red Ford Mustang rolled across the blacktop parking lot toward a maze of orange cones.

The car dodged left, then back to the right around a large cone positioned at the center of the course. It came to a quick stop a few yards later. Then the driver, Strawberry Crest High School junior Daryl Dixon, 16, circled around for another run.

Dixon was one of three high school students taking the Teen Driver Challenge, a program the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office offers several times a year to help young drivers improve their skills behind the wheel.

"Out here we eliminate everything," Alessandri said. "Cell phones are off. GPS is off."

The challenge course includes practice with anti-lock brakes, avoiding obstacles and running a slalom course -- forward and backward. The program uses the sheriff's sprawling training venue off State Road 39 in Lithia.

Students who complete the course get a certificate. Then they head back into the real world where a host of challenges await them, from buddies in the back seat to thumping stereos to the ever-present cell phones.

Phones and other distractions have become such a risk to drivers, law enforcement officials say, that authorities now make note of them. Last year distracted drivers accounted for 37 of more than 3,400 fatal crashes in Florida.

"Now we're focusing on texting, even talking on the phone," Alessandri said. "They're new drivers. Let's leave the phone alone."

Dixon admits that's not always simple.

"Normally when I'm driving, I'm too scared to text and drive," Dixon said. "I leave the phone on the passenger seat. If it goes off, I turn it over. It's not easy."