The Academy of Defensive Driving
What do rally driving and defensive driving have in common? In both cases it all comes down to knowing and mastering a vehicle’s capabilities while adjusting speed to the driving conditions
Ana-Maria Cononovici, 22.04.2025, 13:53
In today’s edition of our social feature we are going to have a look at a different kind of driving school, one, which was founded by a rally driver.
Titi Aur is one of Romania’s most successful rally drivers and has recently opened a school of defensive driving. Of course, even in a school of defensive driving, speed enthusiasts can learn and master a series of driving and drifting techniques on several types of roads, such as asphalt, macadam or forest tracks. Students here can also have access to highly performing two-wheel and four-wheel drive vehicles used in car racing.
Titi Aur, who is now considering himself a trainer of defensive driving has told Radio Romania reporters the following.
Titi Aur: “I left Romania because I wanted to do car racing, you know. I fled before the anti-communist revolution. With the first money I earned I enrolled in a car-racing school in Paris because that was what I wanted to do. When I returned to Romania after the revolution, I started to explain to my younger colleagues rules of defensive driving and I realized that I was good at it, I mean I was able to explain things to them very well and properly convey information. Then it was the next step after I founded my car-racing school to teach others how to drive when I was requested by one of Romania’s biggest companies to give courses of defensive driving. And I developed this area, coming up with new things, inventing a series of devices, simulators, etc. I also managed to build a team of trainers and we are doing this together. We’ve got excellent results and been doing this with pleasure: teaching people safe driving.”
Courses at the aforementioned school have been tailored for one day, so, the employees of one company may not waste time. Here is Titi Aur again.
Titi Aur: “We start with theoretical aspects in the morning, and after lunch our students are taking practical lessons. They are thus learning new things or having their knowledge refreshed and upgraded. They learn why it is better to have a certain position behind the wheel, how is the safety belt actually working or how to deploy brakes in the proper way. They already know these things but not every detail, you know. And they are invited in special simulators when they see what is actually happening in a car crash or rollover situations, they learn how to control a swerving vehicle on slippery roads and all that stuff. After taking on such a course of defensive driving a driver may become a better one or not. However, they will certainly become more aware of the dangers they may be facing while being behind the wheel. And this is what the course is all about, increasing a driver’s awareness about what could go wrong in traffic and the importance of safe driving.”
According to Titi Aur this has been proved by the decrease in the number of accidents.
Titi Aur: “The number of accidents involving our students has decreased almost incredibly and that’s because students in our school can figure out what could go wrong and what can happen to them, they have learnt how to control their vehicles in difficult situations but especially how to avoid being engaged in a difficult situation. In the past 15 years since we have been teaching these courses at an intensive level, we’ve so far had over 100 thousand students. If at first most of our students came from various corporations, now 50% of them are individuals, natural persons. At first our studentship was made up of mature individuals, sent by the corporations they were working for. When they realized how useful the course was they began sending in their children. We have students from all ranges of activity and almost all age brackets, from professional drivers to car owners who have realized the importance of defensive driving, from 18-20 years old to 60 and even more. Actually they come from all over the place.”
The reality on Romania’s roads and motorways shows that defensive driving is a necessity and our interlocutor reminds us that every year 15 hundred people die in car accidents while more than 34 thousand are wounded. Statistics have placed Romania on the first position in a 2024 EU ranking with the largest number of fatalities in road accidents, 77 per million, followed by Bulgaria and Greece.
(bill)
