Anne Marie Hayes

Hi! I’m Anne Marie Hayes.

More teens die in car crashes than from illness, drugs and violence combined! The good news is – 99% of those crashes result from driver error and are preventable! The CDC confirms that actively involved parents are the key to reducing driver error and saving their teen’s lives.

Drivers Ed is a great start but provides only 8 hours of in-car practice. Experts agree, new drivers need at least 100 hours! The mission of my company, Teens Learn To Drive, is to provide parents with a roadmap of structured practice to fill that need, in an atmosphere where tech-savvy teens are willing participants.

We've developed a program called “3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive: Lessons for Surviving the First Year of Driving.” It gives parents the tools they need to be actively involved in preparing their new drivers. The workbook & companion website are for parents and teens to work through together.

The 3 Keys Program guides parents and teens through each level of Graduated Driver Licensing in each of 3 key areas: Actively Involved Parents, Structured Practice and Need-to-Know Information.

These are some tools parents will discover in this program:

• 25 detailed step-by-step driving lessons
• Dozens of bite-sized, easy-to-follow instructional videos from driving experts
• Checklists to cover everything from weather conditions to handling emergencies
• Fill-in-the-blanks Family Driving Contracts for each stage of GDL
• An additional Teen Passenger Contract for when teens ride as passengers in cars driven by other teens
• 12 months of Driving Logs to track your progress
• An Accident Report Form – just in case!
• Where to find supplementary driving programs that are cheap or free
• Great tips to save money on gas, vehicle maintenance and insurance!

Teens love it because there are true stories, puzzles and quizzes to keep it interesting. Plus – they learn to handle tricky situations like what to do if:

• They run out of gas far from home
• A friend begs to borrow their car
• A police car pulls them over
• Their car won’t start
• Their car gets stuck in a snow bank
• They miss their exit on the highway
• Or an ambulance is approaching with sirens blaring!

Sandy Spavone, Executive Director of National Organizations for Youth Safety wrote the foreword. She says, “3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive is a comprehensive resource that fills a tremendous need for parents to work through guiding their child to become a safe driver. The interactive style of this resource between teen and parent provides a tool for families to work together through the teen driver experience.”

This new 300-page workbook is published by Morgan James, New York. The book launch is scheduled to coincide with National Youth Traffic Safety Month and the beginning of the United Nations global initiative “Decade of Action for Road Safety” in May 2011.

We are always looking for partnership opportunities to spread the message of teen driving safety. Please contact me at AMHayes@TeensLear Todrive.com