Brad Coleman has spent a lot of his life behind the wheel, just not always in the same way. A Houston native and retired NASCAR driver, Coleman used to focus on driving fast. Now, he focuses on driving safely. As the owner and CEO of SafeWay Driving, the oldest and most established driving school in Texas, he’s focused on making the Lone Star State’s roads safer for everyone.
About SafeWay Driving
Originally founded in 1973 by Coach Eugene and Jeanne Walker, SafeWay Driving has more than 24 locations across Texas, including 22 franchise locations, and has one goal: preventing the phone call that no one wants. And, it’s successful. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, SafeWay graduates have a first year crash rate of 3.28%, while the first year crash rate of other commercial driving schools in Texas is 5.27%. SafeWay Driving has more than 50 years of experience in training more than 275,000 drivers.
Coleman’s connection to SafeWay Driving is personal. His sister, brother, and himself all completed the SafeWay Driving program as teenagers. When Coleman’s path took him to the world of professional racing, his life changed. At just 14, he earned a professional racing license, making him one of the youngest drivers ever to do so. By 16, he was competing in the 24 Hours of Daytona with two other drivers of the same age, finishing seventh out of 64 teams. Over the next several years, he raced for top NASCAR teams including Gibbs Racing where he shared the No. 18 car with Kyle Busch, and Hall of Fame racing, owned by football legends Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach.
As part of his sponsorship work for the teams, Coleman would often talk to high school students about the dangers of distracted driving. One day, he saw it all click for a teenager who had gone through their simulator and tried to drive while distracted on a phone.
“Seeing the impact I made in that kid’s life sparked a passion for teaching people how to drive safely,” said Coleman. “I started to think there may be something there that I wanted to pursue as a career after NASCAR.”
With encouragement from his father, Coleman approached his old coach and the founder of SafeWay Driving about buying it. The timing was right. Today, he runs the company and has helped it expand across Texas, modernize its curriculum, and – of course – continue to keep safety at its core.
The SafeWay Driving Difference
Coleman notes that SafeWay Driving isn’t like other driving schools where students just hop in the car and instructors start spitting off everything they’re doing wrong. Coleman’s program – the proven and proprietary SafeWay Driving System – follows a curriculum and is designed to create long-term safe driving skills.
“SafeWay Driving isn’t just about helping people get their licenses,” said Coleman. “We are here to truly teach them how to drive.”
SafeWay students learn by using special driving tracks designed to develop subsequent skills, and by using commentary driving to direct them on where their eyes should be looking and having students
constantly verbalize back to the instructor during the lesson.
The SafeWay Driving program combines a flexible, engaging, disciplined online course with the very best professional, behind-the-wheel instruction from trained experts. It maintains a modern fleet of driver training vehicles at all times (no car is more than four years old), each equipped with right-side driver trainer brakes and accelerators, state-of-the-art safety features. Driving sessions are conducted on specific planned driving “tracks.” Safety is of utmost importance, and vehicles have both inward and
outward-facing dash cams, and GPS tracking.
SafeWay Driving not only trains teens, but also trains adults and conducts corporate driver training for large corporations such as Shell, ExxonMobil, and BP.
SafeWay Driving’s Growth
Franchising has helped the company grow into what it is today, with 22 franchise locations and counting. Its newest location just opened in Schertz, Texas and territories are still available. SafeWay Driving looks to partner with potential franchisees who are embedded within their communities and looking to make a real difference within their towns and on their roads.
“We deliberately chose franchising as our growth strategy because we see real value in partnering with people who are already embedded in their communities,” said Coleman. “We want to partner with the kind of people who live there, work there, play there, and have been part of those communities for a long time. They genuinely want to see the lives of the people they know impacted in a positive way.”
And, what better way is there to improve your community than to save lives? To make your roads safer? To raise the next generation to be better drivers?
“Our vision is for each SafeWay Driving location to feel like a local small business,” said Coleman. “The best way to do that is to team up with local individuals who love their communities and want to make an impact while also running a business. You can save lives while making money.”
Looking ahead, Coleman aims for SafeWay Driving to be the largest driver education program in Texas by 2030.
“Ultimately, if we are the safest driving school and then the largest in 2030, our crash statistics across Texas should reflect that,” said Coleman. “We should start to see some real, tangible and lifesaving results on the roads and that’s what matters most.”