Do you think Drivers Ed should be brought back as a mandatory class in High School?

I do think it should be mandatory. It still is at the high schools in our area of Illinois.

What do you think of the idea of simulators?

I would brink back required Sex Ed before Drivers Ed.

Why?

Nobody can afford to pay for it. Insurance companies should realize how useful it would be and offer to sponsor the training in schools.

Edit: In California, Allstate offers a special DVD course for teens and new drivers to take that results in a reduced premium. It costs $180.

I think the simulators are helpful @Dutchess_III. My sons used them in Driver’s Ed. The fee for the class at school was only $50. This was just a few years ago.

But not everyone wants or needs to drive a car.

I can’t see making it mandatory for kids to take Drivers Ed, but I can see making it mandatory for schools to offer it.

The problem then is, of course, that the new ‘thing’ with public schools is charging everything back to the parents. God forbid they learn to drive in a used car or cheerlead in a T-shirt. Then the kids that need extra attention the most can’t afford it.

No, but I would have
*Smaller classroom sizes (No bigger than 12–20 students)
*Less standardized tests
*more nutritious lunches/snacks/whatever
*etc
I look forward to your votes in November.

I’m pretty sure in NJ it is mandatory to have some sort of driver’s education class before graduation. Or perhaps just my county. I’m not sure. In my school it was taught in place if tenth grade health.

They should slide D E into the “no child left behind” grading. Probably teach them on the same road they test on :/

To get a driver’s license before age 19 (I think it’s 19?) in Maryland, driver’s ed is mandatory. However, it is not offered in schools…you have to pay a private company several hundred dollars per child (we have three kids, so it really adds up!) I agree with it being mandatory to get the license, but have mixed feelings on it being mandatory in schools. On the one hand, not everyone wants or needs a license. On the other hand, the current system makes it nearly impossible for poor teens to get a license, which is often key to getting a job, which is often key to being not-so-poor. It’s a conundrum.

I don’t think it should be mandatory, but it should be available. Not everyone wants or needs to learn how to drive. Those that want to should be required take a driver’s education course, but those with no interest should not be made to take it. I see @augustlan beat me to it.

I am with @glacial here; I didn’t even want a driver’s license until I was already out of the Navy. I think that taxpayer money can be better spent given kids enough education to count correct change and write a sentence without skipping half the letters.

That said, I like the systems they have in places like Japan and Sweden; a person of any age who wants to get a drivers license requires extensive classroom training (more than any American drivers ed course) and costs enough that anybody who goes through it wont do anything to risk losing their license as it will cost them thousands of dollars to get is back. Hmm…. more responsible drivers who have practical experience with things like skid recovery? Sounds like a win!

Oh, and to those who think that the high cost of drivers ed discriminates against poor teens, anybody who cannot afford a few hundred for drivers ed cannot afford to have a car. I have a good deal on insurance, but between that, gas, oil changes, registration, and all, that is over $300/month easy, on top of the cost of a car; if you cannot delay getting a license for a few months to save up a grand or two then you shouldn’t be on the road. (Those that know my usual opinions on discrimination against the poor may see some irony here.)

I think it should be mandatory for it to be offered in public schools, but not mandatory for it to be taken. I think when it was offered in schools there were a lot more safe young drivers on the streets and it lowered insurance costs for parents, so it benefited everyone. My driver’s ed teacher was absolutely wonderful and I still appreciate to this day that he thoroughly and conscientiously taught me to drive safely.

I disagree with @jerv about the high cost of private driver’s education not being discriminatory against poor teens because my family is living proof that it certainly is. It has nothing to do with being able to afford a car, because that is a completely different topic. Why would you assume that a teen must have their own car to be able to drive, especially a poor teen? Because of my schedule and the distance I have to travel to work using our family car (we can only afford one car), I have no time to teach my daughter to drive, so I’d love to be able to afford driver’s ed for her so she could learn to drive the family car. Then maybe she could get a job working nights or on weekends when I can let her use our car and save enough to buy a car of her own. We live in an area with absolutely no public transportation. She just started her first job and has to walk 3.5 miles each way down a busy highway to get to work. If I could afford driver’s ed, she wouldn’t have to do that and I wouldn’t have to fear for her safety every single day. Not to mention, if my child could drive the family car and contribute to the household income, maybe I wouldn’t have to drive so far to make a decent wage and could work closer to home and have time to spend with my family. not to mention the idea that a teen could save a few grand in a couple of months is pretty unlikely. I’m a grown woman and it would take me a year or more to save a couple of grand.

@diavolobella we’re on the same page.

Not everyone needs to learn to drive, but everyone that wants to drive needs to have the opportunity to learn in public school.

@diavolobella Will your daughter be on your insurance? Teen drivers bump your premium up considerably. As for saving up a couple of grand not being easy, neither is paying for gas when your daily commute is a 50-mile round-trip and insurance is mandatory in your state. Yet teens in other countries manage.
Then again, I was an avid mountain biker in my teens; how do you think I got to work 5 miles from my house?

@jerv She might or might not be on my insurance. At the moment, it’s a moot point. I’m well aware of the cost of a long commute and mandatory insurance. My round trip commute daily is 100 miles (50 each way). It’s a Catch 22. You can’t buy a car or pay for insurance without a job, but it is nearly impossible (in my area anyway) to get a job and have an income without a car in the first place (for which you must have insurance). Your parents have to be well off enough to be able to help you with it, at least in the beginning and I’m in no position, much to my regret, to do so.

I imagine teens in other places might have access to public transportation, which we do not or workplaces within a reasonable walking distance. She’d love to ride her bike to work, but it is not safe to ride on the shoulder of the highway or on shoulderless winding country roads. They definitely need to make driver’s education available to all teenagers who want it, regardless of financial ability. It would go a long way toward ending the increasing disparity between haves and have nots in this country and would help those without means who are trying to improve things for themselves. Ironic that you didn’t want a license until you got out of the Navy. My son just joined the Navy in large part because he couldn’t get a job because he didn’t have a license.

@diavolobella Sounds like my years in New Hampshire (no jobs within 10 miles of home)—and my first few months in Seattle—(sold my car before I moved; couldn’t find a cheap replacement when I arrived). It’s not that I can’t sympathize with you. I’ve burned sick days because I couldn’t afford gas to get to work, and lived in a panel truck during the dead of a New England winter.

There are programs in many areas that help job-seekers with employment necessities; I got many a bus pass after my last layoff. Maybe expanding those programs to low-income teens under the condition that they find gainful employment within a reasonable timeframe is an option, but only for those whose parents can prove inability to pay.

FYI, I also favor stricter drivers ed for adults. As it stands, anybody with $50 and a birth certificate can get behind the wheel regardless of competence; compare our road fatalities to other nations. Driving may be a necessity for some, and is definitely a responsibility, but it’s not a right.

@jerv The bus pass program is a good idea, if you live somewhere that has public transportation. We have it in my city, but my portion of the city is excluded (something I’ve written and called public officials about for years without success). I agree that driving is not a right, but I think if we are going to teach home economics and fund sports programs in public schools, we should fund driver’s education as well. It’s as valuable a tool as learning how to cook and care for your home and belongings and much more valuable (and valuable to a larger proportion of students) than playing football, etc.

Meh, it’s not the first change I’d make to the public education system, that’s for sure.

Driver’s Ed is required in my state for drivers under a certain age, but it doesn’t need to be completed in school. In order to get my license in South Carolina, I had to get my restricted license for 6 months, take an 8 hour course, spend a certain number of hours driving with an instructor, and then pass the written test and driving test at the DMV. I think that should be enough and that it shouldn’t be required as a high school course, as long as it’s required.

I definitely agree with @elbanditoroso about Sex Ed needing more attention than Driver’s Ed in schools. Not that either would keep high school kids from thinking they’re invinsible and doing stupid things.

Well, thank goodness it wasn’t required because I could never have afforded it.

What kind of kids won’t ever need to know how to drive? That’s an odd statement.
As for it not being mandatory….we just want to hand these kids a 2 ton weapon and have them drive around with little or no training? That makes no sense. Sex Ed is a no brainer too but I wouldn’t say it’s MORE important than driver’s ed.

@Dutchess_III I know a few adults (though not many) that have never driven before in their lives, and many that have a license but no need for a car. I can see it.

Also bear in mind that many kids don’t take their mandatory education seriously enough to get anything from a class other than a certificate of completion, so I’m not sure that mandatory drivers ed would help.

Lastly, while some people don’t have cars, just about everybody has genitals. There is more than one way to have an accident, and with the cost of raising children and the existence of lethal STDs, I think sex ed is a bit more important. Just my opinion though.

Well, @jerv…. Just a guess, I’d be that there are more deaths caused by un-educated, stupid drivers, who can kill 3 or 4 or more people at a time, including innocent children, than there are deaths for individual people who get STD’s from having stupid sex…THEIR choice. It would take about 30 minutes to list all the STD’s a person can get from unprotected sex. 30 minutes to ‘splain how STD’s can be avoided. But Sex Ed is at least a semester long.
Driver’s Ed is much more comprehensive…for a reason. It could take two semesters and still not be fully covered. Bad driving kills innocent people en-mass. STD’s kill one at a time.
I guess I’m waiting to hear personal stories of people that have known people who have never driven….?

@Dutchess_III STDs are far from the only negative results of a sub-par sex education. And 30 minutes may be sufficient for an overview of major STDs, but it’s hardly enough to cover everything those kids need to know about sex.

Let’s talk about teen pregnancies that completely alter the potentially bright futures of young people. Let’s talk about children growing up with uneducated parents guiding their behavior. Let’s talk about teens getting abortions or not getting prenatal care while pregnant.

These kids need to know about their bodies and the bodies of the opposite sex. They need to know about forms of birth control, and how to utilize it correctly. They need to know about the repercussions of their bad decisions. They need to know how to respect their bodies. They need to know what to do if something bad does happen.

Driver’s Ed is certainly important, but in high school, Sex Ed should be addressed first. My 17-year-old sister-in-law that got pregnant, dropped out of high school, and gave up all plans to do anything with her life aside from live in a trailer with her boyfriend and kid(s), no job, no money, and no future, is a perfect example why. Driver’s Ed should be addressed outside of school. Hell, so should Sex Ed, but so many parents are ignorant of this and simply let the schools handle it.

I had half a semester of Sex Ed in high school, and it was a joke. It’s pretty obvious that it was a joke at every school if you just step foot onto a college campus. A bunch of clueless kids…

I’d be willing to argue that most accidents caused by 16–21 year olds has little to do with a lack of education in driving. A few days practicing dodging traffic cones in the school parking lot or being lectured on the rules of the road won’t stop them from texting, talking on the phone, driving drunk, or being easily distracted while behind the wheel. They all know not to do these things, and they know what can happen if they do, but they still do it because they think bad things can’t happen to them.

It’s sad to see how little some people know about sexual health. I don’t think the same can be said about driving.

I think it should be an elective. I still remember the lessons learned in my drivers ed class and my parents could have never afforded to send me to classes had they not been relatively free at school. People forget that in many parts of the country, there is little option but to drive. Public transportation is not a viable option for getting to work or college. Many companies will not hire you unless you have “reliable transportation” and that doesn’t usually include a bus that doesn’t run on Sundays or come early enough for you to open shop.

I like @jerv‘s suggestion about better education for all drivers. My husband learned how to drive here as an adult (he’s from another country). His friends found him a copy of the written test online and he memorized the answers (without understanding them, because at that time his English was limited). He took the drivers test three times and finally got his license. He had no idea that there was a blind spot (and he still forgets to look over his shoulder), he doesn’t know how to drive in snowy/icy conditions (because we don’t have them here, but we encountered them when we traveled) and doesn’t know the rules about keeping proper distance from the car in front of you. AND he drives with one foot on the brake and one on the gas (although not at the same time). Thanks, DMV!

Excellent @Gabby101. @livelaughlove21 I’m not talking about accidents caused by a particular age group. There are plenty of people 16–99 who don’t have a CLUE about basic roadway courtesy. They don’t even know they aren’t supposed to cruise in the left hand lane on the freeway, the don’t know about blind spots and a thousand other things. 99% of accidents are caused by ignorant driving… @Gabby101 made that point perfectly. They don’t know what to do when faced with a sudden emergency. If they could have a simulator that threw the kids into the situations they ARE going to face someday and teach them how to deal with such emergencies, it would save lives.
Everything you addressed regarding sex Ed could be covered in a couple of days. And please…you don’t have to preach to me about the impact being a single mother has.

Furthermore, people…when did this discussion turn into an either/or scenario? It’s not like BOTH programs can’t be taught!

@Dutchess_III

“Everything you addressed regarding sex Ed could be covered in a couple of days.”

I disagree. Maybe to someone that already knows a lot about it.

“And please…you don’t have to preach to me about the impact being a single mother has.”

Ha, I didn’t know I was preaching.

I taught my kids to drive. We live in small, slow paced town. When my daughter was 16 she SNUCK off to Wichta with my car! A friend convinced her to drive them to her friend’s grandfather’s. “Just take Kellogg!” she said. No sweat. Except Kellogg, in Wichita,is a 3–4 lane expressway. My daughter quickly found herself in WAY over her head. She was scared shitless. She said, “I did what you taught me to do. I got in the center lane and STAYED there! And I stayed as far away from other cars as I could!” She made it safely. If she hadn’t had that bit of knowledge she would have been been trying to deal with people entering and exiting in the right lane at 60 mph, or flying up behind her at 90 in the left lane, or she might even have started tailgating as a “security” thing (which is why a lot of people tailgate, I think. They’re depending on other people to tell them how fast to go and what to do.) She probably would have wrecked and taken a lot of people with her. But she didn’t. Thanks to my teachings.
She took sex ed in HS. It’s required. She found herself pg at 18 anyway.
Drivers Ed will lower your car insurance. So will having a baby at any age. Did you know that?

This video is what made me think of the question. I’m trying to decide if I should show it to the grandkids who are coming of age to learn to drive….teach them to anticipate. There is more than one that shows a person flat rear-ending a vehicle that is stopped in the road.

Where we live you have to pass a learner’s permit, then have 120 hours over a min of 1 year logged experience driving with a fully liscenced driver prior to sitting a very rigorous test. Without private lessons its pretty tough plus loads of parent time, there are no classes at school I don’t think there ever has been. Then the kids have I think a 4 year probationary period with zero blood alcohol for two years and restrictions on what they can drive and who they can have as passengers, our injury/death rate in young new drivers is still the highest age group.

@Arewethereyet I think the high accident rate among young people has little to do with formal driving instruction. Like I said, young people think they’re invincible. That, plus a lack of real-world experience is a formula for disaster. I started driving in 2007 at the age of 17. By the end of 2008, I’d been involved in 3 accidents, two of which were my fault. This wasn’t because I didn’t know how to drive – it’s because, at 18, I was more interested in my phone and the radio than watching the road. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but 18-year-olds don’t often think about the consequences of their actions. “Oh, that won’t happen to me. I’m a good driver.” Puh! And, unfortunately, no amount of driver’s education in any setting is going to change that. It’s experience – actually getting out there, making mistakes, and learning your lesson. I haven’t had an accident in nearly 5 years, and this is why.

I know @Dutchess_III said she’s not talking about accidents caused by a particular age group, but when we’re talking about making driver’s Ed a high school requirement, this is what we’re dealing with. Good young drivers make good adult drivers, but making young drivers as responsible as adults, in general, is going to take more than a driving simulator. It’s a fine idea, but it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference as far as accidents go.