Sheriff Initiates Teen Driving Course 

Sheriff Wendell Hall of the Santa Rosa Sheriff's Office has recently initiated a "teen driving course" to help reduce accidents caused by teenage drivers. This program is based on the startling statistics in America today whereby vehicular accidents are the number one cause of death for young adults. Because of this astounding figure the Florida Sheriff's Association met with representatives of several sheriffs' offices and high school drivers to develop a two-day curriculum called the "Teen Driver Challenge." The program has already been tested during previous pilot programs and has proven very successful. The course outline covers such topics as vehicular maintenance, vehicular dynamics, aggressive and impaired driving. A driving course will be arranged and the young drivers will be required to traverse the course in a series of practical exercises to include braking, swerving and recovering their vehicle during a controlled hydroplaning simulation. This class will be under the direct supervision of instructors from the sheriff's office that will be undergoing training in Tallahassee this month. Sheriff Hall stated, "this program has become too successful elsewhere in the state to ignore its benefit to the teens of Santa Rosa County. I have committed four instructors from my agency in hopes of reducing the number of accidents involving our kids. We hope to begin conducting our first class sometime in July of this year." The program is approximately twelve (12) hours long and will most likely be conducted on a Friday night and all day the following Saturday. More details will be available following the return of the agency's instructors.