By GERALD ENSLEY Tallahassee Democrat

Traffic school is now online.

The Florida On-Line Traffic School, operated by Absolute Traffic Academy in Winter Park, began accepting its first applications Monday. The program allows drivers cited for a non-criminal moving violation to gain the certification of standard traffic school by studying the material and taking a test on a computer.

The online course has safeguards to prevent cheating, and requires students to spend the same four hours total required of in-person traffic schools. But the online school offers convenience: Students may take the course in shorter segments, can take it any time of day and can take it on any home, work, school or library computer with access to the Internet.

Florida becomes the third state, along with Texas and California, to offer online traffic school.

"The selling point is convenience," said Tom Smith, executive director of Absolute Traffic Academy. "What we're anticipating is because it's convenient, more people will take traffic school, learn something and the roads of Florida will be safer."

The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles approved the program in May. The primary intent is to improve the number of drivers attending traffic school.

About 3.2 million non-criminal moving violations are issued each year in Florida -- yet only 550,000 drivers take traffic school each year.

By completing the four-hour traffic school, which costs an average of $35, drivers with a non-criminal driving violation receive an 18-percent reduction in the cost of their traffic tickets. Also, no points are deducted from their licenses and they maintain their "safe driver" status, which allows them to renew their driver's licenses without taking a test. Studies show graduates of traffic schools have 49 percent fewer collisions and 6 to 15 percent fewer tickets.

Insurance against cheating

To sign up for online traffic school, drivers must call 800-771-2255, where they will have to provide their traffic violation information, choose a password and share some personal history items -- e.g., mother's maiden name, favorite color, last vacation destination -- that will be used as the safeguards against fraud. During the course, "pop quizzes" about such information will flash on the screen, and students will have two minutes to correctly answer the personalized questions.

Each student's time on the computer program will be tracked, and each student must spend at least four hours on the computer -- though students can spend a half-hour or hour at a time, over the course of many days, until they complete the course.

At the end, a student must take an open-book, 40-question test, with questions randomly drawn from a pool of 500 questions about the material. Students must correctly answer at least 32 of 40 to pass; those who fail can take the entire four-hour course and test again at no charge. After a student passes the test, company officials will notify the state and mail the student a certificate.

Bob Proechel, president of Absolute Traffic Academy, noted in-person traffic schools don't require a test, so the online class "is probably tougher; you've got to prove you know what you've been taught."

"But if we can get to the people who haven't been going to traffic school but are on the roads, then we will have done something."

Contact Ensley at (850) 599-2310 or at gensley@taldem.com

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Article From: Tallahassee Democrat Gerald Ensley (850) 599-2310 gensley@taldem.com http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/