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SharpDrive is all about making our roads safer for everyone who uses them.

It’s a fully Kiwi-owned and designed innovation in motor vehicle driver training — the brainchild of businessman Keith Redit and one of New Zealand’s leading driving trainers, Graham Sharp. Read Graham’s story of SharpDrive below.

SharpDrive is not a simulator — it's not intended as a substitute for practical experience. Instead, it’s the best way to make gaining practical driving experience a safer undertaking by improving drivers' knowledge of the best driving practices, and the many ways to reduce risks on the road. This makes it the perfect preparation for learners about to attend a driving school, and even those considering a defensive driving course.

But as well as enhancing safety behind the wheel, SharpDrive helps drivers improve their fuel economy, reduce wear and tear on tyres and engines, and learn to be "greener" drivers.

In fact, in a few short months SharpDrive graduates recover the low cost of driving training with the savings they make through better, safer and more economical driving.

Graham Sharp on SharpDrive

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve met before — I’ve been in the driver safety training industry for over 24 years and trained tens of thousands of drivers, so there’s a good chance that we have met. Of course, there are still tens of thousands more drivers to train, and lots of people I’ve taught probably need a refresher course too — but I can’t be everywhere at once.

Actually, thanks to technology, now I can.

While I was running practical driver training courses, which were effective in raising awareness and reducing crash rates, a few things still concerned me.

Firstly, when a new driver starts learning, or an employee gets a new company vehicle, I wanted to know that they’d be safe in the vehicle right from day one. Murphy’s law says a driver will have a crash just before their scheduled training day.

So I wanted to offer an effective driver safety training programme they could complete before they get behind the wheel of a car.

Secondly, driver safety research has told us for years that we should give drivers refresher training every year. But for some people — and companies, who have to do without employees for a day while they undergo training as well as paying for the course — that’s been just too expensive to afford every year.

Finally, the more instructors I trained, the more concerned I became about their ability to maintain standards and consistency. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I wanted to see the training delivered to the same high standard everywhere, every time.

So we took on Alex — well actually, we created him — our virtual driver trainer.

The great thing about Alex is that he can run a course any time, anywhere, for anyone. And when he delivers, say, ”Speed Control” for you, it is to the same excellent standard of delivery that everyone else gets.

Another advantage of Alex is that he frees me up to keep up with research and development. I’m constantly exploring ways to enhance the content of our driving training modules — and developing extra content as new requirements arise. Alex can be delivering this new training to his usual high standard virtually immediately.

But if we’ve never met before, or if your organisation has never considered driver safety training before (or thought it too costly), then this is the chance for you to experience a state-of-the-art driver safety programme at a totally affordable price.
In fact with our fuel economy module we can demonstrate that you can recover the cost of the course just in reduced running costs alone. To see how much money SharpDrive can save you or your company, enter your numbers into our simple dollar saver calculator.

Mind you, SharpDrive’s many intangible benefits may be even more important — for example, parents reducing stress, worry and risk as their teenagers take to the road; employers fulfilling their duty of care to their employees, while also reducing productivity losses through injuries sustain in traffic accidents… the list goes on.

We’re helping make our roads safer. I hope you’ll join us.”