Florida Certifies First Traffic School Home Study Course to Be Used by Violators

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has approved the first home study booklet course for use by drivers who have received a citation for a moving violation.

The unique new booklet course, which is a four-hour Basic Driver Improvement and Traffic Crash Avoidance Course, was created, designed and produced by Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc. For the past 30 years the company has been one of the nation’s largest providers of traffic safety education. TSC also operates traffic schools in Florida and has a certified internet, classroom and DVD/video course.

According to Lawrence Gentilucci, TSC’s Director of Operations, the new booklet course – The Traffic School Book – is consistent with the title and theme of “Funny in Florida,” which is the title of the classroom and internet course as well as TSC’s newly released DVD/video home study course. Interspersed throughout the five-chapter, 160-page booklet – which takes four hours to read – he reported, are comic illustrations, graphics and jokes, as well as humorous anecdotes and stories. Emphasizing the importance of comedy in TSC’s traffic school, he said: “We believe the first law of communications is to get someone’s attention and the first law of education is retention. If students don’t retain the information you provide them, you’ve failed. Our experience has shown that using comedy as a `learning tool’ in traffic safety education is more effective in getting and keeping students’ attention and enabling them to absorb and retain the information.”

Gentilucci said that TSC has also recently introduced a new “Funny in Florida” DVD/video home study course in Florida which makes even more use of the comedy approach, blending video effects, computer graphics and original music. In addition, he pointed out, the instructor on the video provides the lessons while playing a wide variety of characters, including: Leonardo DaVehicle, Dr. Otto Mobile, Morty Motormouth and Chef Francois Fender Bender.