Last month in Irvine, California, Kia Motors America and B.R.A.K.E.S announced a multi-year renewal of their partnership. Taking place during the National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, this is part of a massive nationwide effort to reduce the number of serious injuries on the roads, and save lives by providing parents and teens with the appropriate tools they need to be responsible behind the wheel. This program utilizes very useful hands-on defensive driver training along with classroom instruction, to get to the heart of the dangerous matters at hand, and begin to prevent unnecessary deaths behind the wheel.
During 2018, B.R.A.K.E.S is scheduled to host training in Concord, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh, North Carolina; Memphis, Orlando, San Diego, Pomona, and Scottsdale, AZ, with additional locations to be added soon. To check out the schedule or register for a class, visit Here. Car crashes are now the number one cause of death among teens, but with grave effort, we know that this type of forum is making a difference. Top drag racing champion Doug Herbert recognized this month that nearly 30,000 teens along with their parents have now been trained, and it is undoubtedly making America's roads safer for everyone driving on them.
Kia is proud to support B.R.A.K.E.S by offering free training for all who are interested, offsetting costs through a financial donation, and a fleet of over 40 vehicles, including the Soul, Rio, and Forte models. This is an organization that has been putting forth the effort to save lives for over a decade, and is looking forward to doing the same for many more years to come. One of that stats that gets us excited here at Jim Butler of St Louis? Teens who graduate from B.R.A.K.E.S are a startling 64 percent less likely to be in a crash during their first year of driving, staking a large claim to safer conditions on the roads.
B.R.A.K.E.S is a GuideStar Platinum-rated non-profit, whose mission is to prevent as many injuries on the road as possible, and was founded after Doug lost both of his young sons in a very brutal and unnecessary car crash. Teaching sensible awareness and the benefits of constantly gauging your surroundings, the course has eased the minds of many parents who were turning over the keys and purchasing hefty insurance policies for the teen drivers in their families. Each school includes four hours of training, three hours of which are behind the wheel. Panic braking, crash avoidance, and skid recovery are some of the objectives covered. What to do in the event of a traffic stop is another topic covered: it can give a parent a boosted amount of confidence knowing that complying with an officer of the law is laid out comprehensively.