Texas Defensive Driving

This Ain't Our First Rodeo

A Sense Of Humor, Inc., has been helping to save lives through education since 1992.

While operating a classroom business with the goal of offering the highest levels of educational value, customer service and personal enjoyment possible, A Sense of Humor grew into the largest defensive driving organization in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. In recognition of our many years of excellent customer satisfaction ratings, The Power Group selected A Sense Of Humor Defensive Driving as #1 in the defensive driving industry.

In the fall of 2004, after twelve years in business, a "home version" of the course was launched in the form of a State of Texas approved online driving safety course—ASenseOfHumorDriving.com

As with the classroom course before it, the online course operates on the belief that drivers will learn more and enjoy the journey if they can have some "serious fun" along the way.

Eddie, our online instructor, shares his humorous journey to becoming a better defensive driver. Along the way, you'll meet Eddie's wife Betty, his two children Garth and Ginger, and even his dog Harvey.

I'm Sure Online Defensive Driving with Eddie is Great...

But what ever happened to the IRL instructors?

This is where the "About Us" turns interesting.

In early 2005, the original owner of A Sense of Humor was so pleased with the success of Eddie and the online gang that he shut down his brick and mortar classrooms. That's where I come in. At that point, my side hustle had been working as a classroom instructor for A Sense of Humor for about 5 years and had now literally found myself replaced by a computer. If you think that sounds a little disheartening, it was. Not in a "Terminator, rise of the machines" kind of way but more in a "Well, crap, how am I going to make my car payment now?" kind of way.

Enter my son, the side hustle king. Barely 20 at the time, he convinces the owner to take him on as an IT guy. Does my son have any experience in IT? Nope. Does he have complete and unwavering confidence in his ability to "fake it 'til he makes it?" Absolutely.

A short time into his tenure, this kid of mine has seen enough of the operation to conclude that online defensive driving is a growth industry. After all, adoption of the internet is showing every indication of speeding up and drivers are showing not a single indication of slowing down.  So he decides that I should write a course and that we'll go into business for ourselves.

And This is the Fairytale Ending, Right?

Not so Fast...

So we wrote the course, jumped through all the hoops for state approval, found some funding and hung our shingle on the interwebs. Unfortunately, instead of the sound of cash registers ringing, we heard nothing but crickets. When it was all said and done, we weren't back to ground zero, but several steps into the basement. We found a buyer for the course, paid off our investor and signed a non-compete that should have kept us out of the defensive driving biz for the foreseeable future. Fortunately for me, I had a day job to get back to. For the kid, not so much.

Flash forward a couple of years, still deep into that aforementioned non-compete. Did I mention that my son is a bit of a hustler? While I allowed myself to be satisfied with having tried and failed, he kept at it. He continued to learn the industry and how we could have made it work. Once he figured that out, he figured out how to wrangle us out of the non-compete with a handful of magic beans. Now it was back to the drawing board for me to write another course. After another round of hoop-jumping and scrambling for dollars, this time it worked. We were giving enough drivers the opportunity to dismiss tickets and save on insurance that we could both eat regularly and sleep indoors. I even quit my day job.

Nice Story

But What Does it Have to Do with A Sense of Humor?

A year or so into operation, we were looking for different office space. Once again, that outside of the box thinking son of mine has an idea. Both of us have had a long relationship with the owner of A Sense of Humor and he has a facility with some extra space. Not seeing the idea of two competitors sharing the same space to be an impediment, he schedules an appointment to talk to the owner about leasing us a space. I wish him luck on his fool's errand and get on with my day.

Several hours after his meeting started, I get a call from my partner/son who tells me the meeting took a turn that he had not expected. While my mind turned to him being laughed (or forcibly shoved) out of the office, he tells me that the owner proposed a counter offer. Instead of renting a space, why don't we just buy the building and the business along with it? So that's exactly what we did.

So One of the Original Players in Texas Online Defensive Driving Became Your Prince Charming?

Weird, Right?

And that's how the Sense of Humor story comes full circle. After helping the original owner earn enough money to become a pioneer in online defensive driving only to be fired when my existence as a flesh and blood instructor became redundant to the time I wind up buying the beast that made me obsolete. Tale as old as time...

I told you all that to tell you this—we've been doing this a while and we're pretty good at it. You could do a lot worse than choosing a course from A Sense of Humor. Nearly a half million drivers have benefited from our course and it's easier to take than ever. We have recently completed a much needed face-lift (you remember what websites looked like in the late '90's, right?) and, thanks to changes in state law, defensive driving is finally available with printable certificates meaning that getting this done and the court off your back is faster and easier than ever. 

A fresh interface, free audio read-along and printable certificates are just a handful of the reasons that taking a course from one of the oldest names in online defensive driving is the easy choice. What are you waiting for? Get started today!