Crossroads

For the last two decades, a common business mantra throughout the United States has been “faster, cheaper, and better” as companies strive to become more competitive.  Unfortunately, the market forces on the driver education industry over that same time have produced a “faster, cheaper, but not necessarily better” state of practice. 

For a variety of reasons—often linked to a major evaluation of driver education in DeKalb, Georgia in the early 1980s—more and more school systems have stopped offering driver education. And, as driver education has become privatized, parents have generally been unwilling to pay for anything other than the minimum education necessary for teenagers to get their license or qualify for an insurance discount.

So what do we know about driver education? From a research perspective, we certainly know that most of the evaluations performed in the United States and around the world have consistently concluded that driver education does not lead to safer drivers as measured by fewer violations or fewer crashes.
However, it is important to understand this “fact” relative to two others.

First, the typical driver education program is 30 hours in a classroom and six to eight hours behind the wheel. This is hardly sufficient by any standard to affect one’s performance in something as complicated as driving, especially given the lack of emotional maturity of most teenagers. Second, there have been few evaluations of driver education and many of those that have been done have suffered from methodological limitations. 

Unlike many organizations, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has not given up on driver education and in fact has called for a renaissance of new and innovative approaches. The recommendations in our “Novice Driver Education Model Curriculum Outline,” first published in 1995, are still extremely relevant. And, with the exception of a few notable examples, we just haven’t seen the kind of innovative approaches we would have liked.

As part of our commitment, we will soon be publishing new guidelines to promote scientifically sound evaluations of driver education programs. These will be valuable to driving schools, administrators, regulators and researchers. In addition, within the next year we will be using those guidelines to undertake new evaluations of novice driver training programs. In both instances, we are working with Northport Associates, Inc. and an advisory panel of leading experts in the field.

We plan to widely disseminate the findings from these efforts in the spirit of looking forward to a day when driver education will be primarily characterized as “better.” The novice drivers of tomorrow and our society deserve nothing short of that!

Local Programs and Uniform Standards
BY ALLEN ROBINSON, PH.D, Director of the Highway Safety Center, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

During the 1960s and 70s, driver education was primarily taught in the public schools.  While an exact figure is not known, it is estimated that 95 percent of all driver education courses were delivered through local high school programs.

When the DeKalb, Georgia driver education study conclusions were released, we began to see a dramatic change in driver education. The DeKalb Study concluded that driver education was not effective in reducing teen fatalities. We know today that this study was stacked against those who took driver education versus those who didn’t. There was not control for exposure, and therefore the result has been dramatic.

If driver education is not effective, why continue to support it with federal and state dollars? Note that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stopped all financial support to states and discontinued its research and development programs for driver education.

Since state highway safety offices did not have federal money to support driver education, they also discontinued their support of state-administered driver education.  With the sole burden of supporting driver education shifting to state education agencies, programs began to diminish. 

Why should state government support a program the federal highway safety administration says is ineffective? In most states, the burden of supporting driver education  has shifted to the local school district. These programs remained due to the insistence of parents and local community leaders.

Even though local school districts maintained a driver education program, this program changed dramatically. Instead of being offered during the school day as a semester-long program with an integrated classroom laboratory program, it was shifted to after school, weekends and summer. Learning theories have proven that the most effective way to learn new knowledge and skills is over time and allowing for practical application of the knowledge through practice. Yet this approach to driver education has almost exclusively been discontinued.

While this change was taking place in local programs, state education agencies discontinued staff support to monitor and assist local driver education programs.  Universities began to discontinue teacher preparation courses for new driver education teachers.

As a result of these changes, we have witnessed a gradual decline in the availability of driver education courses in the public schools. By some estimates, less than 50 percent of eligible drivers were receiving driver education in the public schools in the 90s.

Not only did we witness a decline in numbers, but worse yet, we saw a total change in course description and delivery. Without national or state guidelines, driver education became anything the teacher wanted it to be. Today, what is taught in one city is unlikely to be the same program taught in another city.

The primary emphasis of today’s driver education is to obtain a driver’s license. This is what parents and new drivers want and, as a result, this is the emphasis of driver education. You get what you ask for. These programs have been successful in getting licenses for new drivers.

Since public schools have decreased their interest in driver education, private driver training schools have flourished. Without these schools, many teenagers would have no preparation for their driver’s license.

The unfortunate part of our current programs is that there are no uniform standards for course content, delivery requirements or teacher certification requirements.

Local programs cannot solve this problem. There must be national leadership that addresses the needs of driver education. Here are some steps that could be beneficial:

• The U.S. Department of Transportation/NHTSA should establish the requirements for driver education and conduct research studies that are realistic in measuring program effectiveness.
• The U.S. Department of Education should encourage state education agencies to adapt standards that would ensure driver education as a part of the “No Child Left Behind” Act.
• AAMVA should reexamine state licensing practices to ensure that only qualified new drivers obtain a driver’s license. If licensing standards increase, so will the level of training programs.
• The American Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association should encourage all national and state agencies to examine how driver education is constructed and delivered in their state. As a follow up, insist that membership follow these guidelines.

These initiatives will result in providing driver education programs that will not only teach basic driving skills, but also will teach safe driving best practices. It is safe driving best practices that will have an impact on the use of our highways.

We are always going to have driver education, because parents and young drivers want this program. The question is, will this program be all that it can be with national and state support or will it be a lackluster local program effort?

Assess First, Apply Later
BY SARAH FERGUSON, Senior Vice President, Research, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

There is a disconnection between public support for high school driver education and research about its effectiveness. Driver education can be a good way to teach basic driving skills to young beginners. Professional instruction can be superior to lay instruction in the acquisition of driving skills. However, scientific reviews of the literature reach the same conclusion: traditional driver education programs have not produced safer drivers.

Driver education sometimes can encourage earlier licensure, which can lead to increased exposure and higher crash rates. And when licensing systems include special privileges for driver education by allowing earlier graduation from a restricted license, studies have found this can be detrimental. Advanced driving courses, increasingly offered to supplement basic driver education, have not been shown to lower crash rates, and in fact can increase crash rates among young male drivers.

Driver education courses generally are of short duration and primarily address basic driving skills. Safety messages are likely outweighed by other social influences shaping teenagers’ driving styles. Students may be less motivated by safety concerns than learning enough skills to pass the driving test. 

In the case of advanced driving courses, increased crash rates could be due to overconfidence or the desire to test out advanced maneuvers. Because of these concerns, any potentially negative effects of driver education (if it is required) should be addressed. For example, time discounts or other special privileges for driver education graduates should be eliminated. 

There is a worldwide trend to maximize the experience gained before licensure. A coordinated approach could allow parents to maximize practice driving facilitated and guided by professional instructors. Many new approaches are being tried, but it is essential they are not widely applied unless rigorous assessments indicate they are effective in reducing crash risk.