Click here to fight your Texas traffic ticket.

Whether you’ve come of age and are looking to get your first-ever driver license or you’ve been issued a court order, you might find yourself needing to enroll in a TEA-approved defensive driving course. These courses are required for a number of reasons. This article will explain what they are, why they matter, and what to do about them.

What Does TEA Stand For?

TEA stands for Texas Education Agency. The TEA is a government organization tasked with overseeing primary and secondary education (elementary school through high school). The goal of the TEA is to improve the education outcomes for all public school students in Texas by providing a few relevant resources for students to rely on. One such resource is defensive driving school.

What Is Included in TEA?

The Texas Education Agency provides a long list of resources aimed at helping public school students better prepare for life. These resources include drivers education (driver’s ed) courses, driving safety courses, and seatbelt courses, among other things. 

All of these courses are offered as part of the TEA’s Driver Education and Safety program, hosted in conjunction with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). 

Drivers Ed

Driver’s ed courses are courses designed to help students learn the rules of the road and prepare to take their written and road tests. These come in two varieties: driver’s education schools and parent-taught programs. In either of these variations, the student can expect to learn the basics of driving well enough to pass their driving tests.

Driving Safety Course

The TEA Driving Safety Course is often called a defensive driving course. These courses are structured in such a way as to teach (mostly) younger drivers how advanced safety practices that they can rely on when behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. If you’re looking to study and learn the basic rules of the road, you should take a general Driver’s Ed course instead.

Defensive driving courses that follow the TEA-approved curriculum help to build on the existing knowledge, perception, and attitude a driver has about driving. State law requires that all providers of this course adhere to a curriculum that meets the TEA’s rigorous standards.

These courses can be used to have seatbelt-related tickets dismissed, preventing you from getting those points on your license or having to face any of the related penalties.

Seatbelt Course

Seatbelt courses are somewhat different from the other courses on this list. Unlike driver’s ed and defensive driving courses, seatbelt courses are most commonly taken by adults over the age of 18. The reason for that is the fact that attendance for these courses is often mandated by a court after the driver is convicted of a seatbelt-related infraction.

Defensive Driving

After successfully completing a TEA-approved defensive driving course, you can potentially get one of your tickets dismissed. This is in addition to the standard benefits of these courses (such as learning better driving skills). However, it is important to note that you can only use this method of getting a ticket dismissed once every 12 months. If you get two or more tickets within a 12-month period, only a maximum of one will be eligible for dismissal in this way.

How Much Does the Course Cost?

This course costs $25 and takes six hours to complete. 

Drivers Ed

New drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 who are looking to earn a driver license in Texas for the first time are required by Texas state law to complete a TEA-approved driver’s education course. The reason for this is to ensure that a standardized learning experience is applied to all new drivers in the state, which will hopefully result in more new drivers hitting the road with a firm and complete understanding of the state’s traffic laws.

These courses often take place in classroom environments and are sometimes offered as electives for juniors and seniors in high school. The information learned should supplement the student’s natural understanding of state and federal traffic laws with the help of government-printed driving documents (like handbooks and manuals).

Most of the time, students in these courses will have ample opportunities to get behind the wheel of a vehicle in safe and secure environments. There, they can learn crucial driving skills, such as maintaining proper braking distance and shifting gears. The inclusion of in-car instruction might not apply in all circumstances.

After completing the course, the students should have the knowledge that they need to successfully pass their written exam and road test.

Driver Safety Course

Driver safety courses in Texas share many of the same general principles as other states and include some of the best incentives in the nation. 

Students of these defensive driving courses can expect to study subject matter that expounds upon the information they learned in driver’s ed (or through similar experience). Here are a few examples of what we mean:

• How to control your vehicle’s speed in unsafe situations.
• How to remain vigilant and predict unexpected events.
• How to minimize the number of distractions when driving.
• How to deal with aggressive, impatient, or bad drivers.
• How to understand the behavior and intentions of other drivers.
• How to maintain a safe following distance and avoid tailgating.

In some cases, students might also learn how to correct a slide or stop their vehicle from hydroplaning.

For many students, however, the information mentioned above is just the cherry on top and the legal incentives are the main reason for taking one of these courses. Here are two such benefits that individuals who successfully complete a TEA-approved defensive driving course might be able to obtain:

• A significant discount on car insurance premiums.
• The dismissal of a traffic ticket (i.e., a verdict of not guilty).

Seatbelt Course

Seatbelt courses are similar to defensive driving courses in that they’re often taken after the student gets a ticket. However, unlike defensive driving courses, seatbelt courses can involve court orders. In many cases, following a driver’s conviction of a seatbelt-related traffic infraction, the court will issue a mandate for the driver to attend a seatbelt course.

Best TEA-Approved Courses in Texas

Although Texas state law requires that all TEA-approved driving courses follow the same curriculum, not all teachers or schools have the same level of skill. Even those that do often have individual teaching styles that might make them better or worse than others when it comes to providing a positive learning environment. Fortunately for you, we’ve taken the guesswork out of finding the best TEA-approved courses in Texas. Check out our list below.

#5: DriversEd.com

At number five on our list is DriversEd.com. This school offers a wide variety of services, including packages tailored specifically for adults. But what puts DriversEd.com on our list of the best traffic schools in Texas is its intuitive and user-friendly online course structure.

Unlike many other courses in the state, DriversEd.com offers the option to attend fully-only virtual classes. Are you too busy to take six hours out of your day? No worries! Form your studies to your schedule with 24/7 access to the course materials and complete sections at will whenever you have the time.

#4: Improv Traffic School

Improv Traffic School frequently ranks in top-five lists like this because of its uniquely entertaining learning environment. When you think of traffic school, traffic tickets, and TDLR, do you think of laughter and smiles? Probably not. But the Improv Traffic School aims to change that.

By incorporating improv elements into every driving course the company proctors, Improv Traffic School hopes to make defensive driving courses just a little more bearable.

#3: iDriveSafely

iDriveSafely earned its spot in third place on our list by forging a well-deserved reputation with “over 9 million satisfied students” and drivers all over the United States. The guaranteed-to-pass education system relies on the skill of the teacher, not the student, to empower students to pass without needing to take a final exam. And, once you’ve completed the affordable and easy course, iDriveSafely offers free e-certificates.

#2: Approved Course

With a name as simple and direct as Approved Course, it’s no wonder that this school is arguably the most straightforward of all TEA-approved defensive driving courses. Unlike other providers, who require you to navigate through a series of windows and web pages, Approved Course has all the information you need in one convenient place.

Couple that with the easy and intuitive enrollment process, high student success rates, and optional upgrade packages and you can easily see what earned Approved Course defensive driving courses the number two slot on our list.

#1: Aceable

At number one on our list of best defensive driving courses in Texas, we have Aceable. Aceable has long been a leading figure in the world of traffic schools due to its longstanding history of providing quick, convenient, and affordable courses. Aceable’s Texas defensive driving courses are fully online, TEA-approved, and TDLR-certified, making them the ideal option for students who are looking for a personalized classroom experience without actually having to sit in a classroom.