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Milford Driving School Inc.
Who Are We ?
Life in the 1950's was not easy, especially if you were a secondary school teacher. Pay for a tenured secondary school teacher was modest. if you were careful with your finances - you could get by and live a modest life.
Robert Pinco - the founder of the Milford Driving school - was one of two biology teachers at the new Milford High School...he shared a teaching space with Peter Tremmel. The new Milford High School had just opened, and was what, today, we would call "state of the art".
The biology venue consisted of two classrooms placed back-to-back with a space between to store all of the accouterments that would be needed to teach biology: bottles, specimens, chemicals, tools - accessible to each teacher from his own classroom space.
After school there remained unassigned and unused time in the afternoon when students were finished being tutored - .after normal class hours were over - .and when the required paperwork was completed and recorded. This is when a teacher could find another source of income as a suppliment to a very modest salary as well as on weekends, when most teachers were not in the classroom.
This was the inception of Milford Driving School: Robert Pinco started the Milford Driving School as a way of supplementing his modest school teacher's salary. Our school was initially started around 1950 (possibly, 1951). At first the location of the business was at 3 Hillcrest Avenue, in the Bayview section of Milford, and was operated out of Robert Pinco's private home. As the business expanded, the school location was moved to a classroom at 25 River Street, in the downtown area of Milford, .where it remained for many decades.
Few rules or government regulations controlled what could be done in this decade of time (early 1950's). A paperback book from that era that contained a compendium of extra-income suggestions, said that a person with a car and a set of car keys could easily offer to "teach" anyone to "drive" after school hours and before diner time in the evening. The only educational requirements: a car - a valid driver's license - a willingness to earn extra income - and time to do the work. And, certainly, the patience to deal with the "student driver" and the considerable risks that came with this task!
Robert Pinco was a secondary school teacher, so this was a natural direction in which to exercise his talents. Teaching in a stationary classroom and teaching nervous teenage students in a moving car were polar opposites, but Robert Pinco must have been successful because the school prospered.
No specific written records survive (of which we are aware). There must have been "bumps" in the road, but prosper he did and, eventually, the school incorporated as Milford Driving School, Inc. , in 1967.
In those decades, all of the training students were "teenagers". Also, at that time, the "adult" (over age 18) world was a very small part of the training mix and almost all of the adult students were women who - for one reason or another - had not obtained a license when they were in their teenage years.
Then, tragically, Robert Pinco died in an unfortunate boating accident. He was an avid sailor and, during a sailing venture onto the waters of Long Island Should, he drowned. His wife, Sybil, never spoke of this accident and few details are known to us or have survived.
Sybil continued to operate the school, for a time, while also establishing an award given to a graduating senior each year at Milford High School, in the name of Robert Pinco.
In 1972, Sybil Pinco sold the school to James Richetelli Sr. - then the current driver training classroom instructor for the Milford Driving School. Jim had been a primary school teacher at the West Main Street Elementary School, but continued his certification work to move into Milford's public school administration. When a position opened at Jonathan Law High School as Vice Principal, Jim applied for it and was selected from the other applicants for the new job.
However, this was a significant change in work hours, work routine as well as work requirements. He no longer had the afternoon, evening or weekend time to help his wife, Maureen, run the Driving School, as he had when he was a classroom teacher. He had owned and operated the Milford Driving School for slightly more than five years when the increasing demands of his new administrative position convinced him that he would have to sell the school.
On March 20, 1978 the school was purchased by Frank J. Jordan - who had worked as an in-car and classroom instructor since July of 1971.
During all transitions the name of the school remained as it had throughout the decades: Milford Driving School. The physical location also remained at 25 River Street, in the downtown area of Milford Center, until 1979...when the classroom and office was moved into a new building at 415 Boston Post Road in order to expand the business and obtain better parking facilities. The Milford Driving School is currently at the same address - although it has moved between units in the plaza over the years.
During the decades, since 1978, additional training programs were added: In 1990 a "Drug and Alcohol" program for all age 16 and age 17 students was required by the State DMV - then, in 1992, testing at the school location (DMV "off-site" testing) was started. A National Safety Council "retraining" program was also added in 1996, with the Milford Driving School becoming a member of the National Safety Council and a subcontractor for the NSC program (the National Safety Council is one of the contractors to administer this training course for the Department of Motor Vehicles).
In the 1980's the school participated in training seminars in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other smaller venues around the country.
Corporate training was started in 1997 and has continued to the present. We worked with nationally known telecommunication companies to improve their safety records - with the staff of the Milford Driving School responsible for the States in the Northeast. Next, training of personnel working for the United Illuminating Company was started in 2001. At their request we worked with Patrick Barrett & Associates, of Houston, to prepare a proprietary training program and training materials - customized for their safety needs - and then worked with the UI Company safety training unit to implement this specific program. We were successful in reducing their accident and incident rate and were invited to reprise the program again for them in subsequent years.
While basic training of teens and adults has always been the core of our business, occasionally we are asked to perform evaluations for medical professionals (Heart Attack, Stroke, TBI, etc.) when a patient has successfully rehabilitated and wishes to return to driving. We have a specific program for evaluations and customize it for each individual according to their needs - then, we produce a detailed written report for the individual and for their medical professionals.
In October 2007, we convened in Maine to discuss the establishment of an organization specifically dedicated to "Collision-Free Driving". The participants: Patrick Barrett (of Houston, TX) - Glen Soucie (of Agusta, ME) - Frank Jordan (of Milford, CT) had all worked together over the years, doing corporate training, conducting training seminars for instructors and schools, and serving on a National Association Board of Directors.
The result of the Maine meeting was the formation of The Association for Collision Free Driving (ACFD), which is located in Houston, TX. Milford Driving School participated in a training seminar, in October 2009, hosted by the ACFD.
Learning Collision-Free Driving skills is, perhaps, the MOST important acquisition of knowledge and related skills that anyone must master. If you wish to survive on the road - these are the skills you will need. There is NO substitute! We have codified this knowledge into a structured program of training for our students. We KNOW what produces Collision-Free Drivers and we KNOW how to teach these skills.
All of the national safety agencies, the insurance and government groups - all agree that operating a vehicle in today's high-volumn, high-speed traffic is the MOST dangerous threat to a persons immediate HEALTH - a threat to which we expose ourselves daily. This is true from the moment we are born and are driven home from the hospital, until we age through the decades and certain chronic illnesses become common for most of the population.
Only ONCE do we have to develop Collision-Free Driving skills. Like the good habits of a healthy diet, enough rest, and moderation in all aspects of our lives - once we learn them: Collision-Free Driving skills will serve us well throughout our life
Driving is a series of HABITS - HABITS that become subconscious once learned. This is what we do - this is our MISSION. To teach Collision-Free Driving and to make it a life-long habit!
The methods of training and communication of concepts has changed dramatically since the Milford Driving School was established more than half a century ago. Our understanding of the causes of driver-error collisions has also changed as dramatically. Milford Driving School will continue to change, too, as improvements in training are continually developed.
What will remain stable and unchanged is our desire and wish that ALL drivers learn to be, and remain, Collision-Free Drivers.
Ask us how -
Life in the 1950's was not easy, especially if you were a secondary school teacher. Pay for a tenured secondary school teacher was modest. if you were careful with your finances - you could get by and live a modest life.
Robert Pinco - the founder of the Milford Driving school - was one of two biology teachers at the new Milford High School...he shared a teaching space with Peter Tremmel. The new Milford High School had just opened, and was what, today, we would call "state of the art".
The biology venue consisted of two classrooms placed back-to-back with a space between to store all of the accouterments that would be needed to teach biology: bottles, specimens, chemicals, tools - accessible to each teacher from his own classroom space.
After school there remained unassigned and unused time in the afternoon when students were finished being tutored - .after normal class hours were over - .and when the required paperwork was completed and recorded. This is when a teacher could find another source of income as a suppliment to a very modest salary as well as on weekends, when most teachers were not in the classroom.
This was the inception of Milford Driving School: Robert Pinco started the Milford Driving School as a way of supplementing his modest school teacher's salary. Our school was initially started around 1950 (possibly, 1951). At first the location of the business was at 3 Hillcrest Avenue, in the Bayview section of Milford, and was operated out of Robert Pinco's private home. As the business expanded, the school location was moved to a classroom at 25 River Street, in the downtown area of Milford, .where it remained for many decades.
Few rules or government regulations controlled what could be done in this decade of time (early 1950's). A paperback book from that era that contained a compendium of extra-income suggestions, said that a person with a car and a set of car keys could easily offer to "teach" anyone to "drive" after school hours and before diner time in the evening. The only educational requirements: a car - a valid driver's license - a willingness to earn extra income - and time to do the work. And, certainly, the patience to deal with the "student driver" and the considerable risks that came with this task!
Robert Pinco was a secondary school teacher, so this was a natural direction in which to exercise his talents. Teaching in a stationary classroom and teaching nervous teenage students in a moving car were polar opposites, but Robert Pinco must have been successful because the school prospered.
No specific written records survive (of which we are aware). There must have been "bumps" in the road, but prosper he did and, eventually, the school incorporated as Milford Driving School, Inc. , in 1967.
In those decades, all of the training students were "teenagers". Also, at that time, the "adult" (over age 18) world was a very small part of the training mix and almost all of the adult students were women who - for one reason or another - had not obtained a license when they were in their teenage years.
Then, tragically, Robert Pinco died in an unfortunate boating accident. He was an avid sailor and, during a sailing venture onto the waters of Long Island Should, he drowned. His wife, Sybil, never spoke of this accident and few details are known to us or have survived.
Sybil continued to operate the school, for a time, while also establishing an award given to a graduating senior each year at Milford High School, in the name of Robert Pinco.
In 1972, Sybil Pinco sold the school to James Richetelli Sr. - then the current driver training classroom instructor for the Milford Driving School. Jim had been a primary school teacher at the West Main Street Elementary School, but continued his certification work to move into Milford's public school administration. When a position opened at Jonathan Law High School as Vice Principal, Jim applied for it and was selected from the other applicants for the new job.
However, this was a significant change in work hours, work routine as well as work requirements. He no longer had the afternoon, evening or weekend time to help his wife, Maureen, run the Driving School, as he had when he was a classroom teacher. He had owned and operated the Milford Driving School for slightly more than five years when the increasing demands of his new administrative position convinced him that he would have to sell the school.
On March 20, 1978 the school was purchased by Frank J. Jordan - who had worked as an in-car and classroom instructor since July of 1971.
During all transitions the name of the school remained as it had throughout the decades: Milford Driving School. The physical location also remained at 25 River Street, in the downtown area of Milford Center, until 1979...when the classroom and office was moved into a new building at 415 Boston Post Road in order to expand the business and obtain better parking facilities. The Milford Driving School is currently at the same address - although it has moved between units in the plaza over the years.
During the decades, since 1978, additional training programs were added: In 1990 a "Drug and Alcohol" program for all age 16 and age 17 students was required by the State DMV - then, in 1992, testing at the school location (DMV "off-site" testing) was started. A National Safety Council "retraining" program was also added in 1996, with the Milford Driving School becoming a member of the National Safety Council and a subcontractor for the NSC program (the National Safety Council is one of the contractors to administer this training course for the Department of Motor Vehicles).
In the 1980's the school participated in training seminars in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other smaller venues around the country.
Corporate training was started in 1997 and has continued to the present. We worked with nationally known telecommunication companies to improve their safety records - with the staff of the Milford Driving School responsible for the States in the Northeast. Next, training of personnel working for the United Illuminating Company was started in 2001. At their request we worked with Patrick Barrett & Associates, of Houston, to prepare a proprietary training program and training materials - customized for their safety needs - and then worked with the UI Company safety training unit to implement this specific program. We were successful in reducing their accident and incident rate and were invited to reprise the program again for them in subsequent years.
While basic training of teens and adults has always been the core of our business, occasionally we are asked to perform evaluations for medical professionals (Heart Attack, Stroke, TBI, etc.) when a patient has successfully rehabilitated and wishes to return to driving. We have a specific program for evaluations and customize it for each individual according to their needs - then, we produce a detailed written report for the individual and for their medical professionals.
In October 2007, we convened in Maine to discuss the establishment of an organization specifically dedicated to "Collision-Free Driving". The participants: Patrick Barrett (of Houston, TX) - Glen Soucie (of Agusta, ME) - Frank Jordan (of Milford, CT) had all worked together over the years, doing corporate training, conducting training seminars for instructors and schools, and serving on a National Association Board of Directors.
The result of the Maine meeting was the formation of The Association for Collision Free Driving (ACFD), which is located in Houston, TX. Milford Driving School participated in a training seminar, in October 2009, hosted by the ACFD.
Learning Collision-Free Driving skills is, perhaps, the MOST important acquisition of knowledge and related skills that anyone must master. If you wish to survive on the road - these are the skills you will need. There is NO substitute! We have codified this knowledge into a structured program of training for our students. We KNOW what produces Collision-Free Drivers and we KNOW how to teach these skills.
All of the national safety agencies, the insurance and government groups - all agree that operating a vehicle in today's high-volumn, high-speed traffic is the MOST dangerous threat to a persons immediate HEALTH - a threat to which we expose ourselves daily. This is true from the moment we are born and are driven home from the hospital, until we age through the decades and certain chronic illnesses become common for most of the population.
Only ONCE do we have to develop Collision-Free Driving skills. Like the good habits of a healthy diet, enough rest, and moderation in all aspects of our lives - once we learn them: Collision-Free Driving skills will serve us well throughout our life
Driving is a series of HABITS - HABITS that become subconscious once learned. This is what we do - this is our MISSION. To teach Collision-Free Driving and to make it a life-long habit!
The methods of training and communication of concepts has changed dramatically since the Milford Driving School was established more than half a century ago. Our understanding of the causes of driver-error collisions has also changed as dramatically. Milford Driving School will continue to change, too, as improvements in training are continually developed.
What will remain stable and unchanged is our desire and wish that ALL drivers learn to be, and remain, Collision-Free Drivers.
Ask us how -