Now is the time for Brits to buy property in Florida!

Written by Seb Jay


For Brits, Florida is a dream destination in which to buy property. All year-round warmth, golden beaches that stretch for miles and miles, and an incredible array of activities for both adults and children attract thousands of British-born residents to acquire holiday homes and investment property inrepparttar Sunshine State each year. This year (2005) is no exception - and withrepparttar 136336 exchange rate being at its most favourable for many years there has never been a better time to buy intorepparttar 136337 American Dream!

Where's Hot? Jacksonville and Atlantic Beach in Northeast Florida are currently good areas in which to buy property. Prices inrepparttar 136338 Northeast are low compared to many other areas of Florida making it very attractive to cost conscious buyers.

Inrepparttar 136339 South, areas alongrepparttar 136340 Florida Keys and also in Naples are still strong favourites for those who want to enjoyrepparttar 136341 best ofrepparttar 136342 Floridian weather. From an investment point of view though Orlando is still unbeatable, both in terms of price and rental potential. A newly constructed 4-bed villa in one of Orlando's many gated communities can be acquired for around $300,000 - that's around £160,000 by today's exchange rate.

Raising the Teen Driving Age to 18

Written by Melih Oztalay


This article is designed to raiserepparttar concern about teen driving fatalities and what can be done to drastically reduce this alarming statistic. While this article may be sensitive to some readers in certain industries, we would like to raiserepparttar 136335 question as to what can be done to make our teens better drivers and how to alert others onrepparttar 136336 road that a new driver is behindrepparttar 136337 wheel.

Our previous article raisedrepparttar 136338 question of whetherrepparttar 136339 driving age inrepparttar 136340 country needs to be raised to age 18. With more teen fatalities onrepparttar 136341 road each year thanrepparttar 136342 amount of deaths reported from 9/11, we must consider changes to our laws governing teen driving. From another perspective one could say thatrepparttar 136343 number of teen deaths onrepparttar 136344 roads inrepparttar 136345 U.S. are greater thanrepparttar 136346 number of deaths reported of U.S. soldiers before and afterrepparttar 136347 war in Iraq! Are our roads a war zone?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 3,657 drivers aged 15 to 20 years killed in 2003. In 2002,repparttar 136348 number killed inrepparttar 136349 same age range was 3,827. While one would never make light of 9/11, let us considerrepparttar 136350 amount of energy, government changes, money, war - to name just a few - put forth after 9/11. If only a fraction of this energy had been given torepparttar 136351 teen driving problem, perhaps we could have reduced teen driving related deaths in 2002 and 2003 – a staggering total of 7,484.

Following is a combined statement from - Gordon Booth, Chief Instructor of Drivetrain, Inc. in California, http://www.drivetrainusa.com, and - Eddie Wren of Drive and Stay Alive in New York, http://www.driveandstayalive.com, regarding our teen driving problem: “Research in several countries has shown not only thatrepparttar 136352 younger people are when they start to driverepparttar 136353 higherrepparttar 136354 chances of having a serious or fatal crash withinrepparttar 136355 first year of driving, but also that a young person's brain is not fully developed until afterrepparttar 136356 teenage years have passed, and that this, in turn, also reduces a young person's abilities as a safe driver.

Wisdom and any genuine desire to protect young people both undeniably dictate that it is better if teenagers do not start to drive until they are at least 17 or preferably 18 years old.

It is noticeable that if parents can hold back a female for 6 months, so they do not start driving until 17 or 18, then one sees them mature at least 12 months. With males a hold back of about a year equals a maturity increase of about 6 months.”

Inexperience, risk taking behavior, and immaturity are cited as primary reasons for these accidents. Increasingrepparttar 136357 driving age to 18 would not necessarily change all three primary reasons. Therefore, we must consider other possible solutions as well, such asrepparttar 136358 driving education process itself.

Driver Education Comparison

Comparing our driver education process with other countries is an important step in exploring possible solutions. Using Germany as an example, we were able to obtainrepparttar 136359 following information directly fromrepparttar 136360 German driving school online at http://www.fahrschule.de

  • First you must be at least 18 years of age.
  • After you have completedrepparttar 136361 driver education course and school you are on probation for 2 years. During these 2 years a lesser driving violation would require you to re-takerepparttar 136362 driver education course. A more serious driving violation would call for your driver’s license to be revoked. In either case when your driver’s license has been granted once again you will be on probation for 4 years.
  • The driver training course covers almost 28 hours of classroom education followed by 35 hours of driving school onrepparttar 136363 road to cover varying conditions of day, night and autobahn experience with an instructor.

The above only covers a small portion ofrepparttar 136364 driving laws in Germany. It is evident, however, thatrepparttar 136365 United States does not have these requirements. How to drive a car?

Teen driver’s aside, it is reasonable to suggest that many adults who have had their driver’s license for years are not knowledgeable enough on how to drive a car. They may be traffic regulation experienced, but what about actually usingrepparttar 136366 vehicle? Duringrepparttar 136367 driver education process we should include how to handle a car under different conditions -- road conditions for rain, snow, ice, what to do if you have to slam onrepparttar 136368 brakes at higher speeds, sudden unexpected responses requiring split second decisions, how to handlerepparttar 136369 automatic and manual transmissions – to name just a few.

This type of training can be performed in driver simulation courses that are currently available from RoadSafety.Com (http://www.roadsafety.com). Larry Selditz, President of RoadSafety.Com had this to tell us:

“Forrepparttar 136370 past 18 months we have been involved in a research and development project to bring effective vehicle simulation to novice drivers and others. While simulators have been around for years,repparttar 136371 operative word here is “effective”, science-based simulation. We recently completedrepparttar 136372 Research and Development phase of this project and are now inrepparttar 136373 process of helping to develop a cost effective commercially viable simulation product. One of our Vice Presidents, Mr. Fred Craft, is forming a new company utilizingrepparttar 136374 technology we helped develop. Fred is an industry expert in advanced vehicle simulation and I believe he would be an ideal contact for input for your article. I have forwarded a copy of your email to Fred.

I have always been a strong advocate of training and believe it is a key component to developing safe driving SKILLS. That is exactly what a simulator can help achieve. Our vehicle and driver monitoring system, a “black box”, isrepparttar 136375 key to developing safe driving HABITS. As my friend Ron Thackery, Vice President of Risk and Safety for American Medical Response, once told me “what you monitor you can control – what you don’t, you won’t”. That applies to teenagers as well as paramedics. American Medical response operatesrepparttar 136376 largest fleet of ambulances inrepparttar 136377 world and uses our black box to control and improve driver performance. The same principles that have reducedrepparttar 136378 number of ambulance crashes by more than 90% are used inrepparttar 136379 “black box” we developed for teenage drivers.”

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