For tens of thousands of high school sophomores across Illinois, the upcoming school year will have special meaning. It`s the year most of them will take driver`s education, which, if successfully completed, will entitle them to that most hallowed of tickets for passage into adulthood-a driver`s license.
All public high school districts must offer driver`s education to students between the ages of 16 and 18 who wish to obtain a driver`s license, according to the Illinois Board of Education. Several parochial schools also offer the course or arrange to have their students take it through a public school.
This year, as in the past, more than 120,000 high school students in Illinois are expected to be enrolled in the courses, state officials say.
But while students eligible to take the course are approaching the prospect of learning to drive with youthful enthusiasm, many of their nervous parents no doubt are wondering whether the course will adequately prepare their teenagers for becoming good and safe drivers.
The answer from many experts is hardly reassuring.
While driver`s education undoubtedly helps young people learn the basics of driving and to understand the rules of the road, it does not fully prepare them for the hazards and dangers they are likely to encounter, the experts say.
Moreover, some driving experts contend, and several studies have shown, that while high school driver`s education courses have increased substantially the number of 16- and 17-year-olds receiving driver`s licenses, they have not reduced the number of accidents among teenagers.
One such study, done by the U.S. Department of Transportation in DeKalb County, Ga., in the mid-1980s, for example, found that while graduates of the best high school driver`s education programs in the county tended to get fewer traffic tickets, they had just as many accidents as teenagers who had no formal driver education.
The problem with driver`s education classes is that ”you get people who are the highest risk (of being involved in an accident) out on the road sooner,” said Fredrick Streff, head of the injury analysis and prevention division of the University of Michigan`s Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor.
”It doesn`t hurt to take driver education, even remedial education in driving,” Streff said. ”It`s just that it has not been shown to be an effective means to reduce motor vehicle crashes and related trauma.”
Data collected by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a Washington-based research organization supported by the auto insurance industry, shows that teenage drivers are responsible for a higher share of crash deaths per license holder than are older drivers.
The death rate per mile also is much higher for teenagers than for drivers of other ages, the institute`s research shows.
Driver`s education doesn`t reduce automobile accidents among teenagers, many driving experts say, because all the education in the world can`t change the fact that a lot of teenagers think it`s cool to drink and drive, to speed, ignore stop signs and drive without a seatbelt.
”It`s unfortunate, but the fact is that driver education, no matter how good the program, is a weak lever for reducing accidents among teenage drivers,” said Chuck Hurley, vice president of communications for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
”If you measure the value of driver education programs on the basis of safety alone, it isn`t justified,” he added.
The only thing that will make driving more safe for teenagers is more parental involvement and control of teenagers` driving, coupled with tougher laws to curb teenage drinking, speeding and driving late at night when accidents are more likely to occur, Hurley said.
Parents can increase the odds dramatically against their children having an accident simply by doing such things as restricting their driving time to daytime and by prohibiting them from driving high-horsepower sports cars, Hurley noted.
Hurley, Streff and most other experts critical of high school driver`s education programs stress that they do not advocate scrapping such courses.
People, after all, aren`t born knowing how to drive. They have to learn the skill somewhere, somehow. And learning in a structured school setting under the supervision of a teacher certified by the state to conduct driver education is far better than having no formal training at all, they point out. In fact, many experts strongly recommend that teenagers continue to learn driving skills even after they`ve successfully completed the state-mandated program in school.
Even state driver`s education officials and many high school driving instructors acknowledge that teenagers might benefit immensely from additional instruction.
The state`s program, they point out, is designed to teach the basic skills of safe driving.
But passing the course, even with straight-A grades, doesn`t make a teenager an expert driver, they admit.
Budget restrictions-the state currently budgets only $15 million for driver`s education in Illinois-and other academic demands on students` time preclude teaching advanced, behind-the-wheel courses in things like accident avoidance and dealing with a variety of manmade and weather-related road hazards, driver education officials point out.
”The more time a young person spends learning and practicing driving skills, especially under the guidance of a well-trained and reputable instructor, the better,” said Jim Churchill, a consultant on safety education to the state Board of Education and a former high school and college driving instructor.
What students enrolled in driver education courses this coming school year can expect is a minimum of 30 ”clock” hours of classroom instruction on the rules of the road and how to safely operate and correctly maintain an automobile.
They will spend a minumum of six additional hours behind the wheel of a car on the street, with an instructor riding shotgun, and at least six more hours observing one or more of their fellow students complete their behind-the-wheel training.
According to the Illinois secretary of state`s office, which oversees the issuance of driver`s licenses in the state, students will be given a white driving permit while enrolled in a class.
That allows them to drive with an instructor or a parent who is a licensed driver. When the course is completed, the student is issued a blue permit, which permits him or her to drive with any licensed driver.
The blue permit remains in effect until the student gets his or her own driver`s license, either by passing a road test administered by the state or, under some circumstances, passing a state-approved road test given by his or her driving instructor.
Under state law, a person must be at least 16 years old and have completed a state-certified driver education course to obtain a license. Those who don`t take a course have to wait until 18.
For those teenagers who can afford it, or whose parents provide them with the money, the best place to obtain added driving lessons is at a reputable local commercial driver training school or at one of the growing number of professional and specialized high-performance and accident-avoidance schools around the country.
”More and more of the teenage children of my clients, it seems, are taking additional driving lessons from commercial schools,” said Don Nelson, an Allstate insurance agent in Palatine.
”I think those who do (take additional courses) tend to drive more defensively instead of from the point of view that the way to drive is to adhere strictly to the rules of who has the right-of-way.
”If I had a nickle for every teenager involved in an automobile accident who told me, `But, Mr. Nelson, I had the right-of-way,` I`d be a rich man,” Nelson said. ”It seems defensive driving is the hardest lesson for teenagers to learn.”
”I think a lot of accidents could be avoided if teenagers learned defensive driving skills. That means letting the other driver go even if you have the right-of-way.”
One of the most publicized professional driving schools offering advanced driver training is the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix.
Bondurant`s two-day course offers students, including teens, intensive instruction in accident avoidance, skid control, emergency evasive maneuvers, as well as proper cornering and braking techniques.
”Rather than teach how far to park from a curb, we teach techniques that could save a life, your teen`s life,” Bondurant says in advertisements for his school.
The problem is that, to attend the school, one must go to Phoenix and shell out a hefty sum. Bondurant`s driving course for teenagers regularly costs $895 for those who bring along their own car, and $1,195 for those who use one of the school`s.
An effective alternative to costly professional or commercial driver training programs is for parents to become involved in providing their teenagers additional training, the experts say.
”It`s really up to parents to make their teenage students better drivers,” said Churchill of the Illinois Board of Education. ”And the state increasingly is working with the school districts to encourage them to get parents more involved in teaching their kids the proper way to drive.”
Parental instruction, for example, may be the only way a student can learn to drive under the variety of weather conditions to which Illinois is subjected over the course of a year, Churchill said.
”A high school driving instructor may have a student for behind-the-wheel training late in the spring when it`s warm, for example,” he noted.
”There`s no way he can give that student the training and know-how to handle a car on snow and ice. A parent has to do that.”
Also, if parents exhibit good driving habits, their children likely will, too, said the Insurance Institute`s Hurley.
”There`s no way a driving instructor in six hours of behind-the-wheel training is going to change a teenager`s bad attitudes and driving habits that parents have instilled in him or her over the last 16 years,” he said.
Tips on how parents can help their teenagers improve their driving skills can be obtained from local high school driving instructors, Churchill said.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a free pamphlet available by writing to Teenage Drivers, Box 1420, Arlington, Va. 22210.
