They say the best way to teach a kid to swim is just to throw them in the water. They may not learn, but either way, they’ll learn a valuable lesson about mortality. Toyota is taking a similar approach to teaching kids to drive. They’re strapping them behind the wheel and letting fate do the rest.
TOYOTA THINKS KIDS ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DRIVE
Toyota believes that that driving habits can form long before a kid ever gets behind the wheel. If this is true, it’s important that children learn how to drive properly. In Kentucky, this is exactly what they are doing. Safety City is a pro-Bono safety education course aimed at second and third graders. Just like normal driving school, the program features classroom teaching and real student driving experiences. Don’t worry, they won’t be scruffing up their parents new Prius. Toyota will be donating $49,000 towards ten kid-sized electric cars. It’s important that these children fully grasp the smugness that comes with hybrids at a young age.
EARLY EDUCATION WILL PREVENT FUTURE ACCIDENTS
Giving these kids memorable, hands-on experience in the field is said to really resonate with them. Children are more intelligent than adults give them credit for and can grasp concepts fairly easy. Toyota thinks we are doing more damage to their driving skills by letting them observe the bad habits of adults instead of teaching them the proper way to drive. As a result, Safety City will be serving more than 2,000 students in Eastern Kentucky. Children will learn about traffic and pedestrian safety, seat belt use and how not to drive after eating too much Playdough. Toyota remarked that supporting Safety City was second nature. Of course, it is. How could they turn down such a wonderful opportunity to influence 2,000 potential future Camry owners?
KIDS WON’T NEED TO DRIVE IN THE FUTURE
Did Safety City forget about this part? Yeah, perfect timing guys. By the time these children grow up they will be sitting the back of their cars, feet up watching a movie while the self-driving car does the rest. They’ll laugh about how they had to do that archaic driving school as kids. Suddenly, the sensors will go off and manual mode kicks in. Thankfully, there will be that one kid who paid attention in class to save the day.
