The New Driver Challenge

The New Driver Challenge is a toolkit of sorts, to help families work together to be safer drivers. The achievement of the license by one of the family members is a great opportunity for all drivers to review their driving style and associated habits. While these articles are written for newly licensed young adult drivers, they contain excellent tips for all drivers.

Experts in traffic safety all recognize that the early months of licensed driving are the most dangerous. Many high schools and community organizations offer occasional driver safety focus events. In addition, there are many organizations that provide day or week-long advanced training. Each effort is part of the Driver Training industry's effort to decrease the casualty rate among young drivers.

The New Driver Challenge is different in that it is intended to provide a steady diet of safety information to be absorbed a bit at a time over several weeks or even months. The articles are short but written to raise the consciousness of risk and safety.  These articles not only explain what to do but why it matters with compelling examples of things gone wrong.  A key component of the Challenge series is the interactive tool that builds accountability between parents and their young adult drivers. Each article has a link to a survey, and the responses are shared with the parents.  We highly encourage parents to have equal participation, reading and completing the surveys and sharing responses with the teens.  We believe this is far better than simply saying "be careful!" as they leave the house and gives the parents a platform to share and show what being careful really means.  

The Challenge series can be used daily and can result in your teen being saturated with important safe driving ideas. Properly used, it can be an invaluable tool in building a family culture of driving safety.  The Challenge features an interactive survey that enables parents and teens to share their thoughts on the article content.  This feature provides a platform for accountability so you know they are reading the material.

The New Driver Challenge is being constantly improved. Our goal is to refresh each article twice a year. Further, users of the tool are invited to provide suggestions for additional material.

KEY THEMES IN THE NEW DRIVER CHALLENGE

The GAAP Safety New Driver Challenge is best understood as a woven cloth. Much like a colorful scarf, the Challenge weaves safe driving themes through an easy-to-read narrative. Each article weaves different themes into a "Challenge" for the new driver to focus on specific habits that build a lifestyle of safe driving. The following is a description of the major themes.

GENTLENESS: Gentleness is of course the first element of the GAAP Acronym. The automobile is probably the single most powerful device that people use. It's a tremendous source of convenience, yet it has the destructive power of a bomb. All too often we are in a hurry when we get into the car. We even delay departure thinking we can make up for lost time driving.

In the Challenge articles, we illustrate how little time can be saved by aggressive driving, and how such driving increases the chances of collision. The articles describe ways to exercise Gentleness before and during a driving event. Finally, we illustrate how being Gentle behind the wheel reduces stress and enables the driver to be more aware and responsive to other not-so-gentle drivers.

INTENTIONALITY: Intentionality is the antidote to complacency. Complacency in driving is caused by inexperience and over-confidence, as well as route familiarity. With teen drivers, complacency begins to develop within the first few independent drives. The Challenge provides ideas on how to combat complacency by intentionally developing specific safety habits.

NEVER, ALWAYS, ONCE: Any collision is a one-time event, caused by negligence on the part of at least one of the involved parties. Most, if not all collisions occur because at least one driver did something that should Never be done. A driver rolled a stop sign; a driver went too fast, a driver rushed a traffic light, or allowed themselves to be distracted.

In the Challenge articles we teach drivers to develop lists of things to Never do and things to Always do. We further illustrate how Once doing what should Never be done, or failing Once to do what must Always be done, can become the One time that leads to a collision. We help drivers see that if a driver never rushes a traffic light, they will never cause a collision by doing so. Conversely, if a driver makes even rare exceptions, one of those exceptions may result in a crash.

ANTICIPATION: We who study driving recognize that the earliest years of license are the highest risk years. This is because as we gain experience, we learn to avoid risk. In the Challenge articles we encourage the early development of skills of Anticipation. This means thinking about what can go wrong, even though there isn't any active evidence. We explain how to combine "What If" thinking, with Never Do habits to explain why one should never assume the green light means you have the "right of way." We believe that developing critical Anticipation skills can lead a new driver to rapidly advance in their driving safety.

IMPULSE CONTROL: Impulsive behavior is the root cause of some of the worst teen crashes. Recent studies have shown that at the age many young adults become licensed, their brain is still developing.  Further, the part of the brain that is still developing the most is the place where decisions and reactions are formed.  The Challenge series helps new drivers understand how to compensate for this natural deficit by developing risk neutralization habits.  Again, tying the Never, Always, Once logic, we provide practical guides to building impulse control.

OTHER-CONSCIOUSNESS: As noted above, the automobile, incorrectly used, can become a very destructive device. Collisions damage or destroy property, health and even life. Often, the driver escapes a collision unscathed while passengers, other drivers, or pedestrians suffer life changing injuries or death. Challenge articles review stories of how families and individuals are affected by the actions of a careless or reckless driver. Each story is used to encourage drivers to protect themselves from a life of regret over an avoidable tragedy.

The GAAP Safety New Driver Challenge is still under construction.  If you would like information on enrolling during our development cycle please email us at info@gaapsafety.com

Copyright 2025 - GAAP Safety Inc.