CHAPTER 1 1

You have enrolled in our online defensive driving course for Arizona, and your eligibility to take this defensive driving course has been verified through the Arizona Defensive Driving Tracking System. The below information explains how your certificate of completion will be processed and to which location your certificate shall be sent, as well as any other pertinent information related to your certificate. Please read it carefully. We suggest that you print this page for your reference and your records.

Certificate Information

Upon successful completion of this course, we will notify your court through the method they require. We will send your certificate of completion directly to you via ?ShipMethodName? to the address: ?FirstName? ?LastName? ?DeliveryAddress1? ?DeliveryCity?, ?DeliveryState? ?DeliveryPostalCode?

{ShipMethodID-1:It will generally take anywhere from 5 to 10 business days for your certificate to be delivered to you via regular US Mail.}{ShipMethodID-2:You selected Federal Express Priority Overnight Shipping, which is guaranteed to be delivered by or before 10:30AM the next business day. Your FedEx tracking number is ?TrackingNumber? and you can login to FedEx at ?TrackingLink? to track its delivery.}{ShipMethodID-3:You selected Federal Express Standard Overnight Shipping, which is guaranteed to be delivered by or before 5PM the next business day. Your FedEx tracking number is ?TrackingNumber? and you can login to FedEx at ?TrackingLink? to track its delivery.}{ShipMethodID-4:You selected Federal Express Second Day Shipping, which is guaranteed to be delivered by or before 5PM on the second business day. Your FedEx tracking number is ?TrackingNumber? and you can login to FedEx at ?TrackingLink? to track its delivery.}{ShipMethodID-5:You selected Federal Express Third Day Shipping, which is guaranteed to be delivered by or before 5PM the

third business day. Your FedEx tracking number is ?TrackingNumber? and you can login to FedEx at ?TrackingLink? to track its delivery.} If you have any questions about how the course works, please email us at Info@GoToTrafficSchool.comor call us at 1-888-329-7069. Thank you forregistering with GoToTrafficSchool.com and good luck with your course!

Best regards,

Staff
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Arizona may have been the last continental state to join the union, but since then it has been a pioneer in safety initiatives. Once the wildest of the Wild West, Arizona is now a trailblazer when it comes to traffic safety, leading the nation in some of the most effective policies and legislation and the most substantial progress on the pavement. Arizona was the first state to adopt legislation on aggressive driving that classified aggressive driving as an actual crime. Since then other states have followed suit, adopting a zero tolerance policy for speeding, following too closely and making unsafe lane changes. The new program, effective in 1998, established a Traffic Complaint Hotline for reporting traffic complaints by citizens, including aggressive driving. Since the hotline started, traffic complaints have increased 76%, and 75% percent of those who call report speed-related violations. This is good news for most of us, but its bad news if youre an aggressive driver. It means Big Brother is watching. And so is Big Sister, and everyone else on the road. Arizona roads offer the diversity of everything from snow covered mountain roads to deep, rugged canyons, as well as all of the weather extremes you can imagine within an hours drive. Thats why driving in Arizona is no joke. The same driving skills you will use to inch through bumper-to-bumper traffic are the very tools you will need to take 100 degree curves through cactus country, where being a little off could leave you hanging over a cliff at 12,000 feet. Whether youre headed to the mall, rushing in the fast lane of the highway or

just rolling through the dirt roads retracing Route 66, the rules of the road are the same. The evasive steering methods that make Arizona lawns safe for gnomes are the same type of defensive driving techniques that will get you through the narrow gravel roads of Kachina peaks. This course is designed to teach (or re-teach) you how to do both. Some of these skills you may have learned before, but if you are taking this course it means you could use a brushup. Believe it or not, traffic school was not meant to be punishment for being a bad driver. Its meant to be a cure for bad driving. The Department of Transportation has gone to great lengths to figure out how to reduce the amount of accidents on the road. In 2004, they put together a study, monitoring six states including Arizona, to determine the impact of traffic schools on actual driving trends. What they found is that drivers who complete traffic education programs are less likely to be involved in crashes and they are less likely to be issued citations following the course.

Traffic Laws Over the years, Arizona has gone through its share of strange or just ineffective laws. Like all states, the government has learned through trial and error what works and what doesnt. Some traffic laws may not make much sense on the surface, but if you knew the whole story, they would. When it comes to the laws that govern the road, they dont change arbitrarily. Department of Transportation officials dont just wake up one day and on a whim, just for the heck of it, decide to change the speed limit on Leafygreenwhatever Street. Chances are, when a law changes, its because somebody got hurt. Theres no mystery behind the science of driving. There is only one motive behind traffic laws and that is safety. Traffic Laws only change when theyre not working. By not working we mean, somebody (usually many) were killed or injured because an existing traffic law just didnt cut it. What you need to know is that unlike the laws that regulate the economy, protect cacti or camels, traffic laws were designed to protect people. They protect people from themselves and from each other. Without these laws, people will die. We know that because thats why these laws came to be in the first place.

Whats At Stake? They dont look like weapons, but in the wrong hands at the wrong moment, any car on the road can be a loaded gun. Thats why we have the rules of the road. Without them, you can only imagine what kind of damage we could do to each other behind more than three tons of steel, glass and metal bouncing around with no speed limits. Most of us know the rules of the road and even trust that they are designed to protect us from ourselves and each other, but sometimes we forget them. Thats why it is so critical to start with a good foundation, before you develop bad habits. Thats exactly what this course is designed to do, to get back to the basics and fill in any cracks in the foundation, to give you all of the tools youll need to become a better driver, a smarter driver andmost importantlya safer driver.

Just the facts

Statistically, the everyday motor vehicle is the number one cause of death among those ages 15 to 30 in industrialized nationsmore deaths occur as a result of unsafe driving than from any other cause. That means you have a one in 25 chance of dying in a car accident. Those are not good odds. However, some countries have half the number of crash-related deaths with just as many vehicles on the road. Therefore, a collision-prevention approach is effective in reducing the number of injuries and fatalities due to unsafe driving. Unless you would like to be one of the tens of thousands of people killed on the roads in this country each year, or the cause of one of those deaths, you need to realize one important point: The comfortable seat and air-conditioned space you travel around in is actually half a ton of steel and glass moved by the power of several hundred horses. Remember, unless you control it properly, it is just as dangerous as a loaded gun. Some people even view their vehicle as a weapon: a study completed by the AAA showed that drivers used their vehicle as a weapon in a third of the 10,000 aggressive-driving wrecks that occurred between 1990 and 1997.

The Cold, Hard Truth

Youve heard the saying, the truth will set you free but first it will make you mad. This is one of those moments. Are you a drama queen? Do you have to stop to find out exactly what kind of carnage is going on in the shoulder? Do you take your bad childhood out on other drivers? Do you only cut people off after leaving you therapists office, but then it doesnt count, because God (or your mother, or whoever) owes you? Do you only slow down at stop signs when nobodys looking? Most people have a general sense of what kind of driving habits are obviously dangerous, but there are many more habits you might dismiss as annoying, which are actually very dangerous. Were not talking about biting your fingernails or cracking your knucklesalthough we dont suggest doing either while you are behind the wheel. Were talking about habits like rubbernecking, not signaling, speeding, tailgating and checking out a pedestrians whatever when your eyes are supposed to be on the road. Were talking about any driving behavior that you know in your gut is a bad, bad idea when you are driving, but you do it anyway. Were talking about whatever you got caught doing that brought you to this course. Your mistake was not that you got caught. Getting caught was a lucky break. You couldve gotten away with it and then slammed into a child in a crosswalk. You got lucky if you are taking this course.

The Course This course is divided into five 45-minute chapters. At the end of each will be a short quiz to review what youve learned. The quizzes include 5 multiple choice questions to highlight some of the important points covered in the chapter and prepare you for the final examination. Then, you will take a second quiz, consisting of five Course Environment questions. Course Environment questions are required by the State of Arizona, and are designed to ensure that you are actively participating in the course and paying attention to the material. You should pay close attention to these questions, as they will help prepare you for the final examination. Throughout the course, we will point out images and illustrations that will appear as "Course Environment" questions on section quizzes and on the final examination. It is very important that you write down the names and locations of these images during the course. You are permitted to bring your notes with you to the final exam testing location of your choice. If you fail the "Course Environment" portion of the final exam, you will fail the entire course.

The GoToTrafficSchool.com Arizona defensive driving final exam consists of two parts: 1) the graded environmental portion, which will test your recollection of images and pictures throughout the course, and 2) the ungraded course content review. 1) The graded environmental portion You are required to score 80% or better (20 out of 25 questions) in order to pass the environmental portion of the exam. If you fail the environmental portion of the exam, you will fail the course so please make sure to pay extra close attention to the images throughout the course. It is an open book exam so we also encourage you to take notes. 2) The ungraded course content review The optional course content review will not count against your overall course score and is intended to reinforce the chapter you material you learned during the course.
The final examination consists of 50 multiple-choice questions covering all five chapters. You must spend a minimum of 25 minutes on the final examination. When you complete the test, you will be informed immediately whether or not you passed it. If you did pass the final examination, your certificate of completion will be sent directly to you, according to the delivery method you selected during registration. If you decide that you need to upgrade to an expedited delivery method, you may call us at 888-329-7069 to do so. We will also notify your court of your successful course completion.