What are the pros and cons for taking a driving crash course?

It depends on your personal needs. Is there a deadline? Do you need to learn high-performance driving? If not, every-day driving lessons are just fine.

Oh, the temptation of responding to “crash” course.

I would base a lot on your estimation of your ability to learn fast and your confidence level. If you are very young, chances are you’ll pick it up fast. If you’re older, maybe you will too, but I’d say the odds are against it—you need more time to rehearse and build up your skill and judgment.

In all cases I would like to see the prospective driver take enough time to be a safe, responsible driver before he or she goes out there on the road with me.

I personally would like to just take a few lessons to see how good I am, if people say look your good enough that if you take a crash course you’ll be sure to pass. I don’t to be in that 10% of people that fail it costs a lot of money.

So, you’re not talking about how to do stunt driving :) ?

Just thought you might get better answers if the Q is a little clearer as to what you want to know.

What exactly do you mean by crash course? Do you mean a course that will teach you quickly, or one that will teach you how to crash “safely”? Does such a thing actually exist?

@Dr_Dredd
They give you intense lessons over a few days and then you do your test, I think it has a higher pass rate.

@DD

Yes, such things do exist both for stunt drivers as well as bodyguards.

@Buttonstc That’s cool. I think I’d like to take something like that. :-)

You could look at what it costs this way: I saved the cost of a course. I paid for: fence posts to the right side, telephone pole to the left side, gate post to the left rearside, bridge to the right side (Fell asleep) culvert to the side of car, right side of car to road… I liked to do some wild things. I should have paid for the course, it would have been cheaper.

I’m not sure exacty what classes we are talking about, but even not knowing I think you should do it. My husband races, and when he started the instructors were invaluable and every time he goes to a new track he still prefers to have an instructor coach him on the new course for pointers. He still sometimes takes racing classes, even though he is practically qualified to teach them. We know people who teach driving safety for street drivers, we see a lot of teens in those classes, and I think it is fantastic to learn the capabilities of a car and be able to feel confident and in control while driving. Personally, when I initially learned to drive I took a fast course, while my friends took driving in high school, and I think I learned more in my class. I have no idea if the teachers were better or not, probably the teachers in high school are just as good, but maybe we had a more focused classroom, students who had paid for their class maybe makes a difference in the student?

So no matter what type of class you are interested in, I think if you are considering, go for it.

Exactly what it will turn out to be, A CRASH COURSE!

It should be absolutely fine. Try a lesson or two and if you feel like its going well then continue. I’m doing driving lessons at the moment. I’ve had 4 one hour lessons and I’m driving fine.

Oh and you’re probably driving an automatic, which means that it should be very easy.

The only hard part will be learning all the proper rules of the road and getting good at observation and communication. That means use your mirrors, check your blind spots and signal to people. If you can get that down then you’re sorted.

@LeotCol Actually, depending on what you are doing, an automatic may make it more difficult, if not impossible (or nearly so). I know that when I am on slippery roads, I vastly prefer a stick since there is actually a direct relationship between my right foot and the amount of torque applied to the drivewheels; something that you lack once a torque converter replaces the clutch.

Automatics may make commuting easier and let you focus on the rules of the road, but personally I can pretty much shut off my brain when I have three pedals whereas I sometimes have to think when I only have two. Something about unexpected shifts is unnerving at best and has, on a few occasions, nearly killed me in the winter time.

Then again, unlike parts of Europe, knowing how to drive in bad weather is not a requirement to get/keep a license in the US so long as you fill in the right bubble on the test form.

@jerv In a sense, it’s a requirement to know how to drive in bad weather, since dead people can’t have driver’s licenses. ;-)