There's no end to new techniques that attempt to impart driving skills to pubescent with learners' permits. Ford's attempt, housed on their Driving Skills for Life website, looks remarkably like a vintage Outrun game or something just as cheesy, save for the Mustang replacing both the Testarossa and its blonde passenger.

Ford recently chose to add an "eco-driving" module to their cyber-classroom, and although it's a good idea to teach novice drivers how not to waste gas, the majority of the advice offered appears to have been authored by Captain Obvious. Highlights include recommending "smooth acceleration," maintaining tire pressures and refraining from aggressive driving. Oh, and did you realize that warming your car by idling wastes gas? This makes Beakman's World look like a juris doctorate program at Harvard.

Still, we suppose there are those who don't don't know these facts (albeit some happen to be in the owner's manual), but the time it takes to get through a three-page primer of how the cyber-course works (what does the print button do?) and a page of boilerplate from Bill Ford Jr. reduces what could be learned elsewhere -say, the EPA's website.

+ Driving Skills For Life: Eco-Driving Module