4 things you didn't learn in driver's ed

Editor's note, December 2012: This article first appeared on Yahoo! Autos in July, and was one of the most popular stories this year. Readers chimed in with their own tips, the most popular being that drivers should pay attention to the road instead of their cell phones. That's life-saving advice for distracted teens who favor the "text and 2" steering wheel position over the 9 and 3.

Humans don't "rise to the occasion."

Instead, we fall to our level of training and experience. Archilochus, a Greek soldier–poet, wasn't thinking about driving when he said this 2800 years ago. But my experience as a race driver, driving instructor, and parent of teen drivers says he could have been.

I teach at B.R.A.K.E.S., a nonprofit advanced teen driving school founded by drag-racing champion Doug Herbert after both of his boys died in an avoidable accident. Here are a few of the school's advanced driving techniques that you can teach yourself... on a little-used dead-end road or other safe location at low speed.

Use Those Brakes for Goodness' Sake