California is a massive state. While the East Coast has a dozen different states to represent people from the north to the south, the West Coast only has three, and California’s 840 miles of coastline is more than Oregon and Washington’s combined. And thanks to that lengthy coastline, California also has a far larger population than any other state. Perhaps that’s why the state has made it easier than most to take a California driver’s ed course online.
The Benefits Of Going Digital
For the state of California, online drivers education and traffic schools make sense because of how well they scale up. With no physical classrooms to reserve and no instructors who need to show up to every lesson, an online California drivers ed course can handle a much larger number of students each month, including those in underserved rural areas and those in cities that don’t have enough driving schools to meet the demand.
Online driver’s ed lessons can also benefit the students by taking advantage of the digital medium. Instead of having a bored instructor play decades-old videotapes, an online course can have interactive lessons that let the students get a hands-on experience that lets them retain the knowledge better. They can watch much more up-to-date videos and animations that make the rules of the road easy for anyone to understand. They can also learn the material at their own rate and on their own schedule.
Ultimately, a California driver’s ed course that goes online can’t make the material any more interesting, but it can make the learning experience much more effective.
The Downsides Of An Internet Education
The online world has always been something like the old Wild West, a largely lawless expanse with a few law-abiding communities found in pockets here and there. While California’s easy certification process means there are plenty of options to choose from, it also means that not all of the options are up to the highest standards of quality.
For instance, if you happen to have trouble confirming your identity while you’re taking an online California drivers ed course, or if it boots you out for no reason you can understand, it becomes almost critical to have a 24/7 customer service line that can help you with your problem. However, not all sites have this.
Another very useful option is a driver’s ed course that has ways of keeping the parents involved since most teens learn a great deal about driving from their parents or guardians. And in any event, it can be hard to tell just how good a given course will be just from the advertising it puts on its front page and whatever sample it might offer for free.
The Reason You’re Here
If you’re reading this right now, you’ve come to the website of Traffic School Critics, one of only a few places where you can find out just how bad or good an online traffic school or drivers ed site is and why. We sign up for the sites and go through all the boring, repetitive courses so you won’t have to so that you can find out which ones are the best of the bunch and which of the best are certified in your state.
We also go beyond the curriculum and find out what other people are saying about online California drivers ed courses and traffic schools. We check with social media and official sites like the Better Business Bureau to find out whether people are complaining about the course for any reason, and we check to see whether they’re compatible with modern mobile devices. We also check how long they’ve been operating, and how many successful graduates have gone through their program. If everything meets our highest of standards, it gets our official Traffic School Critics certification.
You can always choose to send your teen to an in-person California driver’s ed course to get the full experience, but then an online course has plenty of unique benefits that can make the experience better for everyone involved. But if you do go online, you should make sure you’re getting the best quality possible, and to do that you should check out our reviews of California-certified online driver’s ed courses.
What You Should Look For Before Enrolling in a Driver’s Ed Course
While we always make sure to post relevant information in our reviews to keep you updated, it’s always wise to have an idea of what you should look for. This will help you confirm that the school we recommend are really some of the best available. That’s why we would like to give you the features that we usually look for before we review any driving school and its course.
Course material
If you want to retain information, then you need course material that fits your learning style. If you prefer reading, then a text-based course material is one you should look for. However, if you are more of a visual learner, then go for video-based course materials. Still, there are even audio narration formats, where you can listen in while, say, commuting or cooking a meal. You can check websites that offer engaging but effective course content so you can learn easily.
Check: Aceable, DriversEd, DriverEdToGo, MyImprov.
Price
The costs for getting a driver’s license can be very high. Not only do you need to make sure that the course is affordable, but you should also make sure that your investment is worth it. You can opt for courses that let you try the course for free. Or, you can enroll in one that offers you a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.
Check: MyImprov, iDriveSafely.
Customer Support
There may be some questions that you have that our reviews can’t answer, and that’s okay! There is some information that some schools don’t have on their websites, too. So if you have any other questions, you can check for a school that has customer support service 24/7!
Not only that, but customer support is very important if you run into any technical problems. A good support team will be able to help you get back to your course immediately. So it’s important to find a school that prioritizes customer support.
Check: Aceable, DriversEd, MyImprov, iDriveSafely.