Passing a test and being a safe driver are different achievements. These pages cover the skills that sit in the gap, what each one involves, and how a simulator can and cannot help.
Florida gives a learner license from age 15 and a Class E license from 16, provided the learner license has been held at least 12 months and the driver has completed at least 50 hours of supervised driving including 10 at night. Sixteen year olds may not drive between 11pm and 6am, and seventeen year olds not between 1am and 5am, with exceptions for work or when accompanied by a licensed driver aged 21 or over.
Fifty hours is a real requirement and it is also not very much. What those hours contain depends entirely on what happened to come up, which means most new drivers get licensed having never experienced the situations that actually cause crashes.
These pages cover those situations. Confirm current licensing requirements with FLHSMV rather than relying on this summary.
Seeing the developing problem rather than the current one.
Following distance, positioning and assuming less about other drivers.
Most drivers do not brake hard enough when it counts.
Florida-specific, and the conditions most new drivers meet unprepared.
Ten of the required 50 hours, and the hardest to arrange.
Increasingly rare, still occasionally essential.
Please note: Academy Sim Racing does not currently have simulators installed in Florida school districts. The programs described here are services Academy offers and can deploy. Any reference to a district on this site describes an area we can serve, not an existing installation or partnership.
What Academy is, and is not. Academy Sim Racing supplies racing and driving simulators and runs staffed programs with them. We are not a licensed driving school and we do not employ state-certified driver education instructors. Nothing we provide counts toward Florida licensing requirements, the supervised driving hours a learner must complete, or any state-required driver education course. Districts and schools should deliver those through their own certified staff or an appropriately licensed provider. What we offer is supplementary practice and hazard exposure alongside them.
Parents, students and schools all ask about these. Tell us the situation and we will tell you what we can do.