PORTLAND, Ore. — U-Haul recently conducted a Safe-Trailering Rodeo at the annual American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association Conference in Portland.
The purpose of the July workshop was for participants in ADTSEA’s youth program – the National Student Safety Program – to become educated on hooking up, loading and backing up trailers. U-Haul often conducts these “rodeos” at conferences where the merits of safe driving and trailering are discussed.
The event began by dividing 50 students from Washington, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Utah into 10 groups. With help from local marketing company president Dave Scheafer and U-Haul Team Members from Company 804, there were five trailer stations set up for the students to attend.
Eager to win bragging rights, the teams competed against each other to see who was the best at properly hooking up a trailer, loading a trailer (60 percent of weight goes in the front half) and how straight they could back up a trailer. The teams had to complete stations in a fixed time and were scored for points.
MCP Dave Scheafer helped students learn how to properly load a trailer.
“We had a blast interacting with the kids,” Scheafer said. “Watching each group work through the challenges as a team was super cool. They all did an outstanding job. I tip my hat to each and every one of those future U-Haul customers.”
The students were overheard talking about how much they learned and what a fun, interactive environment was offered. The top three scoring teams were acknowledged later that evening.
As a corporate member of ADTSEA and sponsor of NSSP, U-Haul continues its longstanding commitment of encouraging the study and teaching of safe trailering.
Conference instructors and administrators received free safe-trailering materials, including a DVD with video modules, an interactive computer course, a curriculum guidelines book and student brochures.
The U-Haul safe-trailering materials are adaptable to adult education, college-level courses, instructor training and high-school driver education programs. All of these materials are available to public- and private-school driving instructors, students and parent groups as well.
To date, U-Haul has attended 44 national, regional and state and driver education and safety conferences to present its safe-trailering program while distributing 6,800 instructor guides, 51,100 student guides, 5,100 DVDs and 2,400 stand-alone-course CD-ROMs. U-Haul safe-trailering YouTube videos have generated more than 230,000 views and related U-Haul videos have garnered more than 1.6 million views.
Want to see what safe trailering is all about? Visit the Trailers and Towing section of our YouTube page.
