AARPReviews of aarp.com

I concur with LK in Mnpls. The course was supposed to be 4 hours, it was at least 6. It was so repetitive that it became very painful to get through. There was good information but the repetitiveness left me wanting it to stop. Horrible. Unfortunately I didn't have time to find an event to go to. Stop the repetitiveness, you lose people's attention.

This was a very general overview of car ownership for those over 50. It gives a number of tips and opinions, but no typically "defensive driving" training. Most of all I'd be concerned about accuracy, which is often debatable. Check out the following quotes from the course: "New Jersey: It is illegal to pull out into an intersection on a green light and wait for an opportunity to turn left." No, that's not true. It's possible it could be true in some states, but in none I've ever heard about. In New York only ONE car at a time--technically--may do this, but it's certainly not illegal to wait on green to turn. "Do not pass another car if there is a solid white or yellow line on your side of the center line or if there are double yellow lines, . . ." Definitely not accurate. We have many 4-lane highways across America with yellow double solid center lines, and you very definitely CAN generally use the second lane to pass a vehicle that's in the first lane! "If an intersection is congested . . . all vehicles should treat [the intersection] as a four-way stop." No! Only if it's a 4-way stop, or a broken traffic light, do you have to treat an intersection as a four-way stop. "Your speed of travel is one of the key items fully under your control." That's not so, since speed limits (for instance) could constrain you (or a breakdown, or a crash, or...). "New Jersey: When approaching a bicyclist, the driver must change lanes, safety and traffic conditions permitting, into a lane not adjacent to the cyclist when passing, if it is safe to do so, or allow 4 feet of space between the car and the cyclist." Jesus, you would need 3 straight ahead lanes to do the first command... even the middle lane would be adjacent to the cyclist... you'd need to move into a 3rd lane or an oncoming lane!! "Higher speeds result in more crashes . . ." If that were true, we'd have more crashes on highways than on urban roads. It's true in every country that there are fewer crashes per mile on highways than on slower roads.

I spent time AND money to take this course, only to get a $1.10 discount on my insurance, which by the way is going up $63.00. Some of the information was common sense. Find out from your insurance company BEFORE you decide to take this course how much of a discount you will get. I understand the idea behind the course, especially the last section. If the course can be condense a little, it may make it easier to follow.

Very sad course. 1. Diagrams are poorly representative and lead you to the wrong answers. 2. The course never addresses some key things that could help every driver for example, a) cars can turn left or right, and it is not necessary to pull over to the left to turn right or pull over to the right to turn left - the car knows exactly what to do when turning, b) use your directionals to signal your turn before stopping in the roadway, c) if you are driving much slower than the speed limit and a car behind you wants to go faster it is okay to pull over and let them pass, and much more!!!