Virtual Driver Interactive Outreach Programs Promote Driver Safety

Virtual Driver Interactive, Inc.  (VDI), provider of simulation training solutions for commercial and education applications, offers public safety lifesaving educational training products and programs: One Simple Decision and Virtual Hazard Detection.

VDI's safety training products and programs are designed to combat critical highway safety problems.  One Simple Decision (OSD) is an innovative simulation-based distracted and impaired driving program where actual law enforcement, judicial, and medical personnel interact with the driver to modify driving behavior by illustrating the consequences of choices made behind the wheel. One Simple Decision also tracks driving violations in real time, displaying them on the screen as they occur. Driving violations captured include speeding, swerving, running stop signs or signal lights, making wrong turns, driving in the bike or center lanes, etc. Virtual HD , the industry’s first voice-controlled, interactive, simulation-based driver safety program, according to the company, is designed to improve hazard recognition skills and reduce crash risk for many of the top commercial fleets.

Public safety agencies such as law enforcement, fire, and EMS expand community outreach programs by helping their community drivers practice safe driving protocols through realistic, yet peril free simulation. Agencies are dedicating resources to educate the public regarding safe driving habits and have conducted numerous programs relating to impaired and distracted driving. Programs target all age groups, with the main focus being teen drivers. VDI simulators fill the need by being portable, interactive, realistic and associated with both impaired and distracted driving. VDI’s VT Touch Simulator and One Simple Decision (OSD) programs are systems that can be set up in a mobile education trailer for large scale events or departments can take to a classroom for small presentations. The OSD software is extremely engaging which helps keep the attention of young users. The driver simulation scenarios go beyond just driving aimlessly like other simulators and communicates, through first-person video, the consequences of bad choices made behind the wheel.

Some recent law enforcement agencies purchasing VDI simulators with One Simple Decision software include LAPD, Illinois State Police, Colorado State Patrol, Pasadena (Tenn.) PD, the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety, Barron County (Wis.) Sheriff's Department, and many more. Both Brownsville PD and the Barron County Sheriff's Department not only purchased the One Simple Decision software but also the award-winning boating software to provide both safe boating and driving training for their communities.

Virtual Driver Interactive will showcase its One Simple Decision and Virtual Hazard Detection simulation programs at the Lifesavers Conference in Chicago, booth #303. The Lifesavers 2015 Conference will be at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on March 16th and 17th. It is the largest national gathering of highway safety professionals in the United States celebrating 33 years of delivering solutions to today’s critical safety problems. VDI is pleased to continue to support the conference and, like Lifesavers, is committed to sharing the common goal of improving highway safety. For more information on the Lifesavers Conference visit www.lifesaversconference.org .