Best Devensive Driving Class in Arizona, Oregon, or California?

[breathe]

I've just ordered a Model S, 85P+ which is supposed to be delivered in late May. One of my main reasons for buying a Model S is safety. Of course, the most important safety feature in any car is the driver and while I am a careful driver, I don't have any experience driving high performance cars.

Right now the Model S also has one safety disadvantage, in that it will attract a lot of attention from drivers who may try to take pictures while driving and in general be less attentive to the road after they see my car.

So I really think I should take a defensive driving class, preferably in a Tesla before I drive very far in my new Model S.

My location options are Arizona (where I am now), Oregon, where I will pick up the car, or perhaps somewhere in California, where I plan to travel immediately after picking up my car. Ideally I would do the training within a week of picking up my new Model S.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to go to for the best Model S defensive driver training?

 

[GDH]

There is a defensive driving class taught at Oregon Speedway, but I honestly think that you are over thinking your purchase. It maybe zippy but you are not buying a Bugatti.

 

[breathe]

Thanks for your suggestion GDH. I'm really trying to get some training to go from being an average driver to being an excellent driver. Hopefully it will be fun too!

 

[Jason S]

Any defensive driving class will work. From what I'm reading it is mostly about mindset and attention. If you are interested in learning how the car behaves at the limits... it is really really well behaved. Defensive driving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Online Training

 

[GDH]

You will be fine!, the car is a lot if fun to drive and super easy to learn. Just don't punch it to hard when you start off when the roads are wet or icy. Congrats!

 

[gjunky]

You could check out the Bondurant driving courses in AZ. They have a basic car control class which I believe is the Highway Traffic Safety class. I think they will let you use your own car if you ask them and they can inspect it.
http://www.bondurant.com/

 

[breathe]

Jason S., I just completed the online defensive driver course you just linked to. Thank you. It's significantly geared towards state of California employees, but it had some real value. The most sobering thing in the course was their comment that in the two hours it took to complete the online course, there would be one more fatal accident in California. This adds up to over 3,000 deaths per year just in California out of 455,000 annual crashes in California alone!

Our biology makes us afraid of snakes and rightly so, but we have no built in mechanism to be afraid of cars and cars kill a LOT more people than snakes.

Gjunky, thanks for the link to Bondurant. It doesn't look like they have any Teslas, but it certainly looks like fun. I also didn't see any courses labeled defensive driving, but the one for teen aged drivers sounded fun! Ahhh to be a teenager again!

If anyone else has any suggestions, please add them. It would be fun if there was a school like Bondurant with a Model S in their lineup.

 

[caddieo]

Any defensive driving class will work. From what I'm reading it is mostly about mindset and attention. If you are interested in learning how the car behaves at the limits... it is really really well behaved.

Agreed. In addition to mindset and attention, it is also about refining your reactive decisions. What you learn will carry over to the MS. I know my summer track sessions with the BMW and Audi clubs have helped. BTW my wife also took some of those summer track sessions so I had no problem sharing the MS with her from day 1.