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Random Driver's Ed Thoughts & Ideas for 2025

by William Hogan on 01/31/25

Happy New Year to all.. We started our 22nd year back in October, (big news later this year) and our schedule is going full speed ahead after the holiday season and we thought about some thoughts and ideas for new drivers and their families in '25!

1.) First of all kudos to all you parents who are taking an active role in the development of your teen drivers, and shame on the ones who aren't! There is a reason the state of PA wants teens with learners permits to have a six month waiting period and wants them to accumulate 65 hours of driving time before taking a road test.. So if you get 6,7,or 8 hours with a driving instructor, that means upward of 50 hours in six months with mom & dad! We have "preached" this many times over the years but, if you are letting your son or daughter out on the road on their own in a vehicle with a junior driver's license with 20 or 30 hours or so of driving time, you're asking for a big problem!!

2.) People, we routinely show up for a scheduled driving lesson at a students home and the student is frantically searching for their learner's permit.. We can not and will not take a student out for a driving lesson if they don't have a black and white (or colored for that matter) copy of their permit if not not the original document! Pennsylvania doesn't accept electronic documentation of our license or a learner's permit. If something happened while we are out on a lesson, we're going to have a big problem as a driving school, and your son/daughter and you as their parents are going to have a problem. So we recommend taking the original permit and make two or three copies of it and stash the original so you'll know where to get it for taking the road test where you'll need the original, but you can drive around on a copy but not drive around with a picture of it on your phone! That will not work..

3.) Your son or daughter has passed the road test and gotten their junior driver's license.. Congrats to them. Now the "fun" and worry really begin! We want our teens to understand the responsibility in being a driver. You as parents can certainly help! Consider having a Parent-Teen Driving Contract.. It can help you as parents outline your teen's fey driving responsibilities, decide and define the consequences associated when those responsibilities and rules aren't met, and define your role as parents in helping your teen to succeed as a driver. Whether your family has worked with us or not, feel free to reach out to us on this and we'll be happy to forward you our template for this..

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Happy Anniversary To Us!

by William Hogan on 10/16/24

So this last weekend we celebrated our anniversary and starting our 22nd year in business.. It is astounding some days when we see or here of students we taught years ago who now have five and six year old children of their own! Over just the last 7 months in 2024 we have worked with teens from the following schools and school districts; Pennsbury, Council Rock, Holy Ghost, Bensalem, Hun School, Pennington School, Neshaminy, New Hope-Solebury, Lasalle, Solebury School, Central Bucks, Notre Dame, George School, and Villa Joseph Marie. We are proud of the associations we have built with many families over all these years in teaching four and even a few families five children in the same households! We will continue to work on developing these relationships with parents and their teens and work extensively on turning out solid and responsible teenage drivers.. Happy anniversary to us!!

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Our Mission And Our Value

by William Hogan on 05/01/24

We recently had a phone call with a parent in the area who called to inquire about our programs and cost. This parent had been referred by the mother of a recent student, John Daniel who was the fifth member of the Daniel family we had taught to drive going back to his oldest sister Emma who we worked with 10 years ago. The caller inquired as to whether we would administer a road test for their teenager at the end of their lessons with us and their 6 month junior driver/permit term. We explained that we a number of years ago chose not to become a private test center here in Bucks County as we felt it was a conflict of interest to teach a teen to drive, then be the same people who administer their test and approve them to be a licensed driver in this state! They then questioned why we didn't do 2 hour driving lessons "like all the other driving schools do"? So our mission in almost 21 years has never changed.. We set out to be the best driving school in Lower Bucks with the premier value in getting students prepared to both pass a road test, as well as be thoughtful, able drivers when they do attain their license! As we explained to this parent, "does your teen take math class for two hours in high school everyday"? Of course not, but why is that? Because they wouldn't be concentrating for that long.. So why would anyone, including other driving schools in this area think a new driver should be out on the road learning to drive for two solid hours at a time? In our perspective, this is simply foolish and proves to us that all those other schools are just providing the goal of getting in the time that the state of PA. wants teens to have with formal lessons as quickly as possible and with the stated goal in many of our competitors cases to get your son or daughter to pass their road test! We do a six hour program that consists of 5 lessons not 3! We're not doing more than hour-and-half lessons at the most and we're working in a number of real life driving environments that other schools do not get involved in including inner-city driving. And we're not going to do a lesson every 5 days or so, we're going to tell parents that we're going to need them to be part of the process, get involved in driving with their teen, and we'll do a lesson roughly every 2 1/2-3 weeks to allow them to get comfortable/confident/able in one driving environment before we go on to the next. We're going to focus on test prep at the end of our programs not right in the beginning.. Let's get them to be solid drivers before we get them ready to attain their license! Then we will very thoroughly prepare them by doing a pretest/dry run of their entire test from A-Z a few days before they take the exam.

So parents, if you want to spend literally hundreds of dollars more to have a driving school get your teen hurried through six hours of lessons a month or so before their road test, we are not the driving school for you and your family! If you are looking for a partner in the process of making your teenager a sound driver at reasonable cost, then reach out and we'll be happy to explain all the ways we're different over 21 years..

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Happy New Year

by William Hogan on 01/02/24

Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays to everyone.. We've recently embarked on our 21st year of working with students in Lower Bucks area and worked with more than 140 new students this year! As we finish the year, we wanted to thank all of the families over this last year that trusted us with their most precious commodity, their children in working with them on the important task of becoming a successful young driver.. We're exceptionally proud of our track record of students passing their road test on the first try, but also on the idea of teens who get and understand the responsibility that driving involves! We look forward to continuing our work with the youth of the area and their families as well as the many adults we work with as well in the driving task. Best wishes to all for a healthy, happy, and safe 2024!
#driving school near me #advantage driving

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Latest Covid Booster Shots

by William Hogan on 10/31/22

As of October our team of two have both had the latest Covid Omicron booster shots so we can continue to be on top of what is necessary for the health of our client families as well as ourselves.. We hope everyone has a healthy and happy holiday season!

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