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AARP Safety Course almost crashes

A full house attended the AARP Defensive Driving course at the Senior Activity Center last Friday. Seated in the first row, from the left, Pelagia and Gordon Madore and Linda Holmes; standing, instructor Louis Arceri; on his right, Larry Sliker; second row, Warren Moore, Carmel Bodnar and Sandra Moore.

A call came in to Henrietta Roberts, coordinator of the Office of Senior Services, about midday on Wednesday, November 1 from Beryl Marshall whose husband Lysle was scheduled to teach the AARP Driver Safety course that Thursday and Friday. “Lysle,” she said, “is sick.”


What to do? There was no way Henrietta could contact the 33 Island seniors who had pre-registered for the course, return their checks and re-schedule the class. “I’ve got to find another instructor,” she thought, and that, to her credit (and good luck) is what she did.


Louis Arceri, a 12-year veteran volunteer instructor with AARP answered her call. He hails from Amagansett and was in place at the Senior Activity Center promptly at 9:30 Thursday morning. 


The course is designed to use an instructional manual that has self-testing after each unit, combined with an excellent DVD whose footage parallels the material covered in the manual. Topics include identifying road signs by their shape, the rules of the road when entering a round-about, traveling safe distances behind a moving vehicle, safety features in your auto and the challenges senior drivers face with advancing age. 


I had a chance to sit in at the conclusion of the class after the Reporter’s staff photographer Bev Walz had taken her group photo.


Mr. Arceri was explaining to the class precisely how he wanted their paperwork assembled for processing by AARP. Clearly he was a firm, no-nonsense kind of guy, but with a welcome sense of very dry humor.


Several times while the group was filling out forms, he mentioned the importance of the DMV form, MV 104, an accident report which he said is better and more detailed than a standard police report. Too often in his experience with litigation, the names of fictitious passengers have appeared on a police accident report. You can pick up copies of the MV 104 at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Riverhead, and you should carry them in your glove compartment together with your insurance and registration documents.


The AARP Driver Safety Course is sponsored by the Office of Senior Services twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. Henrietta Roberts keeps a list of local seniors who are registered with her so that she can remind them when their three-year re-certification is due. This is a unique service. Without timely re-certification, you can lose the annual discount of $100 to $150 from your insurance provider.


Mr. Arceri, a portly, balding, bespectacled gentleman of indeterminate age, was dressed casually in a red, white and blue cotton shirt and chinos for his Shelter Island debut. His final words of advice to the class were greeted with loud and enthusiastic applause, “Take care of yourself; take care of your car.”