Texas House Bill 1190

Currently there is a House bill in Texas that will affect all defensive driving courses in Texas .

The bill is the following:

By: Flynn

H.B. No. 1190

	A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
	AN ACT
	relating to statutory minimum fees for driving safety courses.
	BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
	SECTION 1.  Section 1001.205, Education Code, is amended to
	read as follows:
	Sec. 1001.205.  REQUIREMENTS FOR DRIVING SAFETY SCHOOL
	LICENSE. The commissioner shall approve an application for a
	driving safety school license if on investigation the agency
	determines that the school:
	(1)  has driving safety courses, curricula, and
	instruction of a quality, content, and length that reasonably and
	adequately achieve the stated objective for which the course,
	curricula, and instruction are developed by the course provider;
	(2)  has adequate space, equipment, instructional
	material, and instructors to provide training of good quality;
	(3)  has instructors and administrators who have
	adequate educational qualifications and experience;
	(4)  maintains adequate records as prescribed by the
	commissioner to show attendance and progress or grades and enforces
	satisfactory standards relating to attendance, progress, and
	conduct;
	(5)  complies with all county, municipal, state, and
	federal laws, including fire, building, and sanitation codes and
	assumed name registration;
	(6)  has administrators, owners, and instructors who
	are of good reputation and character;
	(7)  does not use erroneous or misleading advertising,
	either by actual statement, omission, or intimation, as determined
	by the commissioner;
	(8)  does not use a name similar to the name of another
	existing school or tax-supported educational establishment in this
	state, unless specifically approved in writing by the commissioner;
	(9)  maintains and uses the approved contract and
	policies developed by the course provider;
	(10)  does not owe an administrative penalty under this
	chapter;
	[(11)   will not provide a driving safety course to a
	person for less than $25;] and
	(11) [(12)]  meets additional criteria required by the
	commissioner.
	SECTION 2.  Section 1001.352, Education Code, is amended to
	read as follows:
	Sec. 1001.352.  FEES FOR DRIVING SAFETY COURSE. A course
	provider shall charge each student[:
	[(1) at least $25 for a driving safety course; and
	[(2)] a fee of at least $3 for driving safety course
	materials and for supervising and administering the course.
	SECTION 3.  The change in law made by this Act to Section
	1001.205, Education Code, applies only to an application for a
	driving safety school license submitted on or after the effective
	date of this Act. An application for a driving safety school
	license submitted before the effective date of this Act is governed
	by the law in effect immediately before the effective date of this
	Act, and that law is continued in effect for that purpose.
	SECTION 4.  The change in law made by this Act to Section
	1001.352, Education Code, applies only to a driving safety course
	provided on or after the effective date of this Act. A course
	provided before the effective date of this Act is governed by the
	law in effect immediately before the effective date of this Act, and
	the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.
	SECTION 5.  This Act takes effect September 1, 2013.

We are petitioning to prevent the passing of Texas House Bill 1190.

In summary, five reasons to be opposed to HB 1190, although there are many, many more:
1. Reduces the opportunity for small businesses in the driving safety field to startup and compete on a level playing field with larger multistate operations.
2. Could create similar deceptive advertising techniques that other states have resorted to similar to Florida and California.
3. Will eventually result in a loss of jobs within the industry with lower skilled workforce of instructors due to lower pay.
4. Closing of currently operating small businesses in the driving safety field due to the inability to be price competitive with online courses with call centers in other states and abroad.
5. Reduced profitability in the industry as a whole therefore reducing the taxes collected hurting State and Federal Governments.
Small businesses within the driver safety and driver education industry in Texas, along with the families they are composed of, will hurt tremendously if the bill is passed.

Texas Defensive Driving

Comedy Driving Inc has 5 Houston Locations as well as our online defensive driving course!

Humble | Katy Freeway | League City | Sugar Land | Willowbrook

Cost of owning a car is on the rise

Overall, the costs of car ownership have risen compared to last year, according to an annual study by AAA, which says it now costs 2% more to own a sedan than it did last year.

The costs vary a lot according to the type and size of vehicle, though. It costs about $7,000 a year to own a small car in the United States but about $11,600 to own a four-wheel-drive SUV, according to AAA.

The study factored in costs such as fuel, maintenance, insurance, tires and depreciation.

Maintenance costs have risen the most, according to AAA, going up 11.26% compared to last year. Maintenance costs almost 5 cents for every mile driven. Those costs have gone up because of increases in labor costs, replacement parts prices and extended warranty prices.

Insurance costs have gone up 2.76% for sedans, AAA said. The drivers' group based its annual estimate of $1,029 assuming that a driver has a clean record. Insurance companies in seven states showed small increases for sedans of all sizes.

Fuel costs rose only 1.93% compared to last year. While the price of gasoline rose 3.84%, that was partly offset by improvements in the fuel economy of new cars. The cost of tires was unchanged from last year.

Article from: http://money.cnn.com

Defensive Driving Texas

Comedy Driving Inc has 5 Houston Locations as well as our online defensive driving course!

Humble | Katy Freeway | League City | Sugar Land | Willowbrook

Google Does Not Want You To Drive

Getting you to take your eyes off the road could be worth billions in new search revenue to Google.

Google has never said exactly how it will make money off the self-driving vehicles it has been developing. Will it manufacture cars? Try to become the operating system for our highways?

The patent, titled “User interface for displaying internal state of autonomous driving system,” covers the idea of a vehicle dashboard that uses lights to cue a driver when it’s safe to relinquish control of their vehicle to a computer.

The patent includes an extremely telling schematic (shown below) of a driver behind the wheel of a self-driving car. Because what will people do when the car is driving? Obviously, they’re going to play with their iPhones.

While Google has never said how it plans to commercialize automated vehicles, it’s clear that keeping people’s eyes on the Web instead of on the road could itself mean a substantial boost to the company’s revenues.

Baloney, you say. Well, getting people to use Google services instead of doing something else is already a key strategy of Google’s. That is one reason the company can afford to maintain its free Android operating system for smartphones. All those phones mean more people on the Internet, searching via Google, and clicking on ads.

So just how much could Google earn by making sure drivers are not distracted from the Internet?

Based on U.S. Census Data there are 250 million adults in the U.S., of which 119 million work. Of those, 76 percent drive to work alone spending about 25 minutes to get there. Round trip, call it an hour. Times 260 workdays per year. That comes to about 23,514,400,000 extra person-hours a year to play with phones out of about 1,460,000,000,000 hours American adults spend awake each year. Or about 1.6% more free time overall.

Given Google’s revenue of $46 billion a year (and assuming the rest of the world behaves like Americans) the calculation suggests that by freeing up commuters to surf the Internet driverless cars are worth an additional $736 million in search revenue to Google.

Oh, and let’s not forget the point of this patent: Google’s car will tell you when it’s safe to start searching.

Comedy Driving Inc has 5 Houston Locations as well as our online defensive driving course!

Humble | Katy Freeway | League City | Sugar Land | Willowbrook