Name: Frank Tiritilli
Background: Tiritilli teaches driver education in the Chicago schools. He also teaches at Traffic Safety School, which was initiated in 1988 by the Circuit Court of Cook County, through the Northwestern University Traffic Institute, which developed the program under National Safety Council guidelines. Northwestern sent letters to driver-education teachers in the area to recruit them for the program, and Tiritilli was hired. He now teaches traffic safety several nights a week throughout Cook County and helps train new instructors. Tiritilli lives in Chicago with his wife and two children.
Years as a traffic-school instructor: 5
The first 15 to 20 minutes of a class are the most crucial. The majority of the people who come do not want to be there, and their attitude shows it. Either they have to take off from work or they feel the police officer was wrong. Some of the people are anxious simply because they haven’t been in school for a while and they’re wondering if I’m going to put them on the spot or call on them to answer a question. I try to come across as upbeat and positive, to put them at ease.
The class is designed for people who are minor traffic offenders. When you get a ticket, you can pay a fine, request supervision and agree to take traffic safety school. Then the offense doesn’t go on your record. Thousands of people were cleared from the courts this way, because the whole process is done by mail.
For first-time offenders, the class is four hours long. There is a graduate-level course, eight hours long, for receiving a second ticket within 12 months of the first.
I give the people a brief agenda of what’s going to happen in the next four hours. I’ll have them introduce themselves to the class, give their name, the number of years they’ve been driving and tell the class what their ticket was for. This initial process kind of bonds the students together.
Whenever I ask the class how many people know someone who has been killed in a traffic accident, almost everyone raises their hand.
Then I tell them, “I’m going to give you volumes of information to help keep you alive. If you take just one or two things with you, and can apply it on the road, then this was all worth it.”
Each student receives a small textbook at the start of the course, and session by session they follow along. There is so much material I would actually need more than four hours to present it all. The class is compartmentalized into four sessions, each session lasting 50 to 55 minutes. In between we have a short break, so the students can get a drink or use the washroom.
During the break I leave out a library of clippings I’ve collected in a binder. When I find an article about the most dangerous intersections in the city or an article about an accident at a railroad crossing, I’ll include it in the binder. Some of the students usually browse through it.
I do use props during class. I have some magnetic cars on a white board, with overlays of mock intersections. There is a big section on intersections. That gets a lot of conversation going, because most of the students are there because of a problem at an intersection. I’ll use the board to demonstrate things like passing, correct following and how to get rid of tailgaters. Especially in an urban area like Chicago, when people are under a lot of stress, they follow too close.
I’ll also show films, seven to eight minutes long, which reinforce what is discussed during the lecture. They use actors who are placed in a similar situation to one we’ve just discussed. We don’t use scare tactics and show gruesome scenes from accidents. In fact, I’ve had people come up to me after class and tell me the films should be more graphic.
Session four deals with alcohol and drugs. People are surprised when I tell them that light beer has the same amount of alcohol as a shot. The effect that alcohol has on your mental state depends on a lot of factors, such as your weight. It takes one hour for your liver to rid your body of the effects of just one drink.
Prescription medications can affect driving, not to mention illegal drugs. People are surprised that something like a cold medication can be a depressant and have a negative effect on driving.
During the entire class I stress how important it is to constantly keep your mind on your driving and to be aware and alert. As one example, we’ll tell them exactly how long it takes to stop a vehicle. It’s simple physics.
At 65 miles an hour, it takes 3/4 of a second to spot the hazard, recognize it as a hazard, make a decision to stop the car and have the brain tell the foot to move to the brake. During that whole process, the car has already traveled 71 feet. That’s just the reaction time-you haven’t started to stop yet. Under optimum condition, meaning good brakes, a dry road, etc., the Transportation Research Record 893 reports that it takes 160 to 224 feet to brake the car. That makes the total stopping distance 295 feet, almost the length of a football field.
I really believe in the material I’m teaching, and I follow the guidelines. During the session on correct following distance, I’ll always have someone ask me if I really drive that way. Then they’ll say, “How do you ever get where you’re going? You must be going backwards!”
Railroad crossings are very important. Illinois is one of the top two states for the number of people killed at a railroad crossing. We talk about warning devices, how easy it is to misjudge how far away the train is.
There is a brief test at the end of class. Then we sign them out and send the class roster back to the central offices. The students all get a certificate of completion from the National Safety Council and Northwestern. I’ll thank them for their participation and praise them.
Now class is over, emotions are high, and I can hear them jingling their keys in their pocket. I say, “Whoa, you’re primed for a collision; slow down and remember what we’ve talked about.” But we’ve actually had fender benders in the parking garage after class because some people are so anxious to leave.
Each student gets an evaluation card to rate the instructors and make their personal comments about the class. These go to the National Safety Council, which sets up the program, so they make sure we’re doing our job right.
A good 90 percent are positive. Ever so often I’ll get a card back that says they thought the class was boring. I’ve had people send their kids to take the class. Or we’ll get requests from corporations to come in and provide the class for their employees.
I know I did the job correctly if on the way out they’re shaking my hand and telling me they learned something. If one life is saved because of what they learned in my class, I feel good about what I’m doing.
