I was a police officer for 21 years with the Los Angeles Police Department. My first week on the job, I saw two teenagers killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light. We were the first responders on the scene. The second responders were the paramedics and one of them was actually the father of a girl who was killed in the crash. That memory really stuck with me for a long time. I saw a lot more fatal accidents involving teenagers throughout the years. So when I retired in 2004, I started a driving school to help train teenagers how to drive.
Don't drive faster than your angels can fly!
We put kids in brand new Mustangs and have police officers or retired police officers teach them how to drive. We even teach kids how to control a car if they get themselves in trouble. We’ll put them on a skid pad, water down the surface and slide the car sideways, but it’s all very controlled. We use professional stunt car and race car drivers to teach kids how to handle themselves in those situations so they become more respectful of the car. It's a calling in my life to do this. We've been doing this for 14 years and history shows that the kids have very successful driving records. In fact, we found that accident rates actually dropped 40%.
I always want to be an example of that no matter what car I’m driving, even this Huracan. There are special places to be able to accelerate, do burnouts and stuff like that. I always tell people just to take it to the track, it’s safer for everyone not to do it on public streets. That's what we tell kids to do, so there’s no reason for us not to do it as well. I'm always going to practice what I preach, including what it says right on the back of this car: “Don't drive faster than your angels can fly!”