The Tire Rack Street Survival (TRSS) program is a one-day, hands-on, real-world driving skills program designed specifically for young drivers. 

The BMW Foundation created the program in 2003, and PCA Potomac has participated since 2021. TRSS combines classroom sessions with instructed emergency maneuvering driving techniques performed in a safe and planned learning space. Inexperienced drivers learn vehicle dynamics and experience how to control vehicles, during unexpected situations that can occur in real traffic. 

Students have almost half a day in their own car with a PCA instructor, learning car control and safety maneuvers. These lessons are reinforced in interactive classroom sessions. Students learn:

• How to avoid accidents

• What to do when they skid

• What to do when other drivers do stupid things

• How to be safe when driving with others in the car

• How to avoid distractions.

Students are divided into two groups to allow them maximum seat time. In the morning, students spend half the time in the classroom learning the basics of safety, car control, and other concepts familiar to those who have done DE or A/X.

The other half of the morning is spent on the course. Students drive their own car with an instructor in the passenger seat. They spend 20-25 minutes on each of the three exercises: slalom; ABS braking & emergency lane change; and the skid pad.

After lunch, students and their parents watch Dirk Dekker demonstrate what happens when an airbag deploys. Always impressive, even with side panel bags.

The afternoon involves another classroom session, which reinforces what the students learned in their cars that morning. They also are back on the course, during which the three exercises are linked in one continuous loop to simulate what they could expect to encounter on the streets.

Why do we do it? The national TRSS program (https://streetsurvival.org/) notes that a 16-year-old driver is 20% more likely to be killed in a vehicle crash than an adult. PCA Potomac and our volunteers are here to help reduce that percentage and loss of life and property. Just within the PCA Potomac community, two of our members have lost sons in road accidents. In each case, the sons were not at fault – but were unable to mitigate the outcome. This experience has very much brought the TRSS program close to our minds and hearts.