MILWAUKEE — It is important for all new drivers to learn the rules of the road, but one Milwaukee community group wanted to fill in the gap between what driver’s education does not teach and what young drivers need to know before they get behind the wheel. Safe and Sound created the program called Drive Wisdom hoping it would cut down on reckless driving.
"Real life skills, real life lessons, that's really big,” said Diamond Thompson, program manager at Safe and Sound.
She says the community group looked at how they could tackle reckless driving. They thought there was an education component missing that you won’t learn in a classroom.
“Things like know how to deal with a ticket, learning how much insurance costs on a car, knowing the different benefits of having a car, maintenance, just the simple things that not that driver's ed maybe, not saying they don't want to go through it, but they aren't really concerned about it,” said Thompson.
Safe and Sound developed Drive Wisdom, a six-week course, designed for teens but anyone can take it for free. At the end, it gets drivers ready to pass the state's driver's permit test. It also helps people get the documents they need for a driver's license since they have found students they work with often face the extra hurdle of not having things like a copy of their birth certificate or a permanent address.
"I had a young lady, 17 years-old say, 'I haven't even seen my social security number. I can't even tell you what it is,” said Thompson.
On top of that, they want everyone to be prepared to deal with any consequences of a traffic ticket. So they can remain a legal driver.
"You have that ticket or whatever happened, how do you go about that? Do you go to the court date on time? Do you know the point system? You get 12 points. Each ticket carries different points, different things like that,” said Thompson.
Ultimately, Safe and Sounds hopes the more education drivers get before hitting the road, the more likely they are to make the right choices on the street.
"It's like that parent talk, it is like the big brother/big sister mentoring thing like this is what you learn in driver's ed, but this is really what you need to know too, so it all collides,” said Thompson.
Safe and Sounds is currently enrolling for their summer Drive Wisdom class. It is free and open to anyone in the community including adults who might be looking to get a license. If you are interested in enrolling, contact Safe and Sound at 414-220-4780.
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