This is a good article that was posted on Autotrends. Interesting, especially if you have teens about to drive, or remember the absolute joke of Drivers Ed classes that we sat through.
By Harrison Card
Young drivers crash a lot. Yes, we know. But, hey, at least they know when they left their turn signals on. Despite possessing turn signal awareness, young drivers have a habit of plowing cars into trees, ditches and other immovable objects, including houses.
Graduated Licensing
Given the amount of government property (mostly lampposts) that teenagers have destroyed, some states have adopted a system of driver qualification known as graduated licensing. In essence, this arrangement gives teens their driving privileges in a series of steps spread out over months to a year or longer.
The first step includes the classroom and driving components of driver’s education. The classroom part involves watching lots of videos about crashes and dead people.
The second step requires driving 10 mph below the speed limit to avoid incurring the wrath of the instructor and the dreaded passenger side brake. After this, the new driver gets a learner’s permit of some type, allowing him to drive with a parent present in the passenger seat. When he has a permit for a year, he can get a provisional license. This particular stipulation limits how many passengers he can have in the car as well as the time of day he can drive. After a specified period of time — usually six months — he gets the full, unrestricted license.
Graduated licensing, as it is formally called, is a good idea as it seems to make kids think twice before speeding. If they get caught, not only is there a fine, a visit to rehabilitative school, and the ire of angry parents to deal with, but violators will have to wait another six months before they can progress to the next level. At least it is this way in theory.
Drivers Ed
While graduated licensing seems to have slightly reduced the number of teens almost killing someone, the real problem teen drivers face are the horrid drivers education programs. The classroom component is an exercise in pointlessness. Traffic laws and general driving practice techniques, such as braking, are discussed, but the majority of classes involve instructors who don’t want to provide online workshops. These workshops are absolutely impossible to pay attention to and all students are taught is that drunk driving is bad. If someone didn’t know that already, there are more serious problems with his upbringing.
As unhelpful as the classroom portion is, it does give students an accurate study guide on how to pass the written portion of the DMV test. It’s kind of like those SAT strategies that teach you exactly what you need to know for the test, but forget an hour after the test is over.
The driving portion is even worse as a student sits in a car and drives around for hours. Yes, this component offers road experience; however, it’s very unlikely that any severe road situation will happen.
Finnish Example
When our programs are put up against drivers ed programs in some other countries, it’s no wonder we can’t drive. For example, in Finland students get to drive on a wet skid pad, working on skid control. They also must practice night driving and learn the techniques to avoid accidents such as how to respond to hydroplaning.
Nothing in the standard American drivers ed program requires an instructor to learn. Parents would probably be much more effective teachers of basic braking, turning and accelerating themselves. While some private driving schools offer in-depth classes on how not to die when your car spins, they cost more then most teens’ cars. Instead of paying schoolteachers to drive around for hours upon hours for no reason, why not invest in a proper driving program, as in car control, instead of taking students through the mindless circles of suburbia that are used to train teens today?
Real Life Experience
When a teen gets in his car for the first time, he won’t drive like a parent is watching. Therefore, the “driving below the speed limit” practice he gets with an instructor is useless — he needs real life experience. Graduated licensing can offer a certain degree of student driver management, but it won’t help a driver who hits a patch of black ice and doesn’t know how to react. It may serve to make him think twice about speeding if he gets to move up to the next level in graduated driving the following week. Maybe there is something graduated licensing after all.
