Motor vehicle collisions kill more than 35,000 people and injure millions more every year. Collisions are the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for most age groups, and the #1 cause of death for teens. Unsafe driving also costs communities more than $250 billion a year. Traffic courts are on the front lines of this huge problem, but fines alone don't create lasting behavior changes. Retraining drivers with better skills and improved attitudes is essential, especially for young drivers or repeat offenders.
NSC Solution: Partnerships for Safer Roads
For more than 50 years, the National Safety Council has helped more than 70 million drivers improve their skills and attitudes through its world class driver safety courses. Courts across the country incorporate these driver safety courses as part of sentencing, and the results are fewer drivers in front judges, fewer collisions and fewer fatalities.
How it all Works
NSC brings together traffic courts and education centers (community colleges, bar associations and training centers) to take on part or all of the program management for the courts. NSC can provide authorized trainers and instructor development courses to help ensure the curriculum is delivered consistently to all drivers in the program.The result:
- Reduced Court Congestion: When drivers pay court fines and sign up for a safe driver program through the education partner, judges have far fewer traffic cases to hear each day and roads become safer
- Reduced Administrative Costs: When courts allow an education partner to take on some or all of the tasks for managing the safe driver program, the partner takes on those administrative costs
- Improved Driving Skills and Behaviors: Drivers learn better driving conduct and choices through unique and effective NSC defensive driving courses
- Safer Roads: As more drivers are trained, roads become safer and collisions, injuries and deaths are reduced
Three Options for Courts
How a court chooses to set up a driver retraining program depends on its own infrastructure, resources and administrative capabilities. NSC supports several program options:
- In-house court program administration: For courts that already have qualified instructors, classrooms and personnel to manage and track violators from course signup through completion
- Hybrid program: An education center provides instructors, materials and classrooms space, and reports driver completion status to the court, reducing court congestion yet allowing the court to retain most administrative control
- Education center program management: Education center distributes program instructions to cited drivers, registers drivers, provides qualified instructors and classrooms, tracks course completion and notifies the court of driver status for a full, turn-key solution
Nationwide, more courts have partnered with NSC than any other provider for driver safety training. NSC courses offer leading-edge curriculum based on research into best driving practices, techniques and choice theory. And for courts' flexibility in sentencing, NSC offers a variety of effective, relevant courses to address the retraining needs of drivers of all ages, driving records and violation severity.For more information, call (319) 669-0069.
