There are a number of traffic schools with “comedy” in their names. The idea behind combining humor with school is that, by making studying entertaining, the student is able to concentrate on the course work and the process of learning the material is relatively painless. Okay, that’s a reasonable theory. In the case of Comedy Express Traffic School, however, the comedy has been left behind. “It’s just a name,” the person on the help line told us. “We used to have stand-up comedians teach our classes, but now it’s all on-line.” So… it’s a humorless comedy traffic school? Well, no, not exactly humorless, just that their focus has shifted to efficiency: Students can get through the course quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Fine, that’s reasonable, too.
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Customer Support
The school’s office hours are listed as 8:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, but they also offer e-mail and telephone support on evenings, weekends and court holidays. The telephone number is toll-free (888), which is convenient. In the course of researching this review, we tried out the help line and received fast, detailed information. While results may vary, as they say, this test leaves us optimistic.
Registration
Getting started is very simple: Go to their website, click on the county and courthouse location where the citation is being adjudicated. After entering the case/citation number, it’s necessary to enter personal information, such as name, date of birth, address, telephone number and email address. Once registered, there are some security questions and answers, to establish an Identity Verification profile (these questions and answers will be used when the user logs in to verify that the person taking the course is the one who registered). Then, the school sends a log-in identification number to the enrollee’s email.
Security
Comedy Express Traffic School seems to take security – particularly credit card security – very seriously, which is comforting. They are insured and bonded, plus they boast that their site uses the highest level of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption available to keep credit card information from being hacked. Payment for the course can be made with a major credit card or by PayPal.
How It Works
The course is taught on line and is accredited with the State of California Department of Motor Vehicles for all 58 counties. The material is divided into five chapters; at the end of each chapter, there is a five-question quiz. Answer at least four of the questions correctly and move on to the next chapter. There is no minimum or maximum amount of time that a student has to spend on line; the course length is entirely dependent on the student’s to read, absorb the information and correctly answer the quiz questions. It’s not even necessary to complete the course all in one sitting. Students can log out and log back in later (using the identification number) whenever it’s convenient. After completing the five chapters, a 25-question final exam is offered. It’s open-book, of course, but is timed to no longer than one hour. A passing grade is 70% (18 questions) correct but, if a student fails, the test can be taken a second time. Failing the final exam twice requires the student to take the course again, from the beginning. The good news, however, is that Comedy Express does not charge for a do-over!
Certification
Upon passing the final exam, the student’s certification of successful completion of the course will be sent to the court by Comedy Express Traffic School. If the court claims that they have not received the certification notice, the school will contact the court and DMV to resolve the issue. Confirmation of successful completion of the course will also be sent to the student by email, but if, for some reason, it is not received, it cannot be re-sent to the student. On the other hand, the school will keep the confirmation information online for a minimum of three years.
What We Like
With hacking now a worldwide sport, it’s good that Comedy Express Traffic School takes security seriously. We also like the PayPal payment option; that’s not found in all schools. Another big plus is the free re-registration for students who fail the final exam twice. Best of all is their willingness to go to bat for students if the court loses the certification notice. All in all, this seems like a straight-forward, let’s-get-it-done driver’s school: No funny business.
What We Don’t Like
It’s a small thing, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask for a second e-mail confirmation of completion if the first one gets lost in cyberspace.