Hartford Students Seek Driver's Education Program

A 2013 study by the Foundation for Traffic Safety division of AAA noted two key findings associated with new drivers being licensed to drive before their 18th birthday.

The study found that for minors from households with an annual income of less than $20,000, only 25% were licensed by their 18th birthday, while 72% of those in households with an annual income of $60,000 were licensed by their 18th birthday.

These disparities in income level were nearly mirrored when race and ethnicity were the controlling variables.  For White minors, 67% were licensed before their 18th birthday.  For Black minors, 37% were licensed before their 18th birthday, and only 29% of Hispanic youth got their license before the age of eighteen.

Six Hartford Schools students from Achievement First are out to change these numbers.

The 6 students, members of Advocacy To Legacy, appeared before Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez and the School Board this week to request that Hartford Public Schools offer a driver’s education program for students.

For these students, cost was the main barrier to enjoying a sort of rite-to-passage that American youth have enjoyed since the 1930s, and that 16-year-olds have enjoyed in Connecticut since 1921.  One student told the Board that most students cannot afford the $600-$720 fee charged by private driver’s education companies.  Another student who did obtain his license through a private company, stated that he was able to do so only through the good graces of a “sponsor,” who paid the private company fees.

The economic benefit associated with a school-based driver’s education program, one student told the Board, is that a license would allow many young people to obtain employment and open a bank account.  Another student said that by having an in-school driver’s education program, his dream of obtaining a CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) would be one-step closer than it would be if he had to first wait until he was 18 years old to begin the process.

These 6 students must have done their homework because they also made points that align with those made in the AAA study. 

A student stated that if drivers are trained at a younger age, that experience will result in less accidents once they are older.  This point was underscored by another student, who stated that she was 18 years old and although eligible to get her license, she has no experience behind the wheel.  She also stated that educating young people to understand the “techniques” and “details” of driving, strengthens the driving experience.

In the AAA study, it is noted that because the requirements and restrictions of GDL (Graduated Driver’s License) programs throughout the country apply only to new drivers younger than 18, many young people are waiting until they are 18 to obtain their license, “resulting in older teenagers having less driving experience and higher crash risk” than a young person who went through a GDL program.

In August of 2018, Governor Ned Lamont announced that the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles and Travelers were co-sponsoring the 14th annual “Teen Safe Driving Video Contest,” to urge high school drivers to drive responsibly.  “This annual contest is an opportunity to educate and engage teenagers on the dangers of distracted driving and the importance of making smart decisions when getting behind the wheel,” Governor Lamont said.  This is what driver’s education programs do.

The Governor and Travelers ought to put their money where their mouth is.  It was announced that that the winning students and their schools in this contest would be awarded $26,000 in prize money.  It was stated that this was the 14th year of the contest, and if the same $26,000 was given out each year, that $364,000 could have sponsored full, private driver’s education programs for 520 Hartford students.

The Harford Board of Education has approved nearly $200,000 this year so that a group of students in 4 Hartford magnet schools can play video games (and here).   That $200,000 could have funded full, private driver’s education programs for 285 Hartford students.

Yale University PhD Leon S. Robertson said in a 1980 report that Connecticut eliminated state funding for high school driver’s education programs in 1976, dropping the state’s budget line for this item from $627,000 to zero.  That $627,000 in 1976 would be worth $1.4 million today, enough to sponsor full, private driver’s education classes for 2,000 Connecticut young people. 

Two weeks ago, HPS awarded $1.7 million to a company/non-profit called Effective School Solutions (ESS) to provide mostly ineffective mental health services to 85 students for one school year. 

Dr. Madeline Negron, the Superintendent’s Deputy Superintendent of Academics and School Leadership, will be leaving HPS soon to become Superintendent of New Haven Public Schools.  Dr. Negron was paid a $192,000 annual salary by HPS.  That freed up salary number would sponsor full, private driver’s education classes for 274 Hartford students. 

For the cost of 1 central office employee, 275 Hartford students could get a jump start on their economic future and a sense of pride and accomplishment while still in high school – something millions of dollars paid to outside “experts” by the Torres-Rodriguez administration since its inception has been unable to accomplish.

As the popularity of the automobile increased during the 1920s and 1930s, so did automobile accidents and fatalities. In 1925, 21,900 people had been killed in automobile accidents in the U.S.   In 1930, only 24 states required a license to drive and just 15 states had mandatory driver’s exams.

In 1934, a drunk driver hit Penn State University Professor Amos Neyhart’s parked car.  Neyhart felt that the rise in automobile accidents was do to the fact that nobody was teaching folks how to drive; “at the present time, the effort put forth in teaching new drivers is very small,” said Neyhart. 

Neyhart set out to change this.  He began the country’s first driver’s education course, teaching “safe behind-the-wheel practices” to students at Pennsylvania’s State College High School, using his own car, a 1929 Graham-Paige Model 837 with a 120 bhp, straight-8 Continental engine with a 4-speed Warner transmission. 

Neyhart’s focus was on developing good driving habits and skills in America’s young drivers.  “Youth is eager and anxious to learn,” he said.  Neyhart became known as the “Father of Driver’s Ed” and by 1965 his program was being taught in 13,000 schools, with over 1.7 million students receiving driving instruction.  Mr. Neyhart died in 1990 at the age of 91, in the same town where he started the driver’s education revolution nearly 60 years earlier.

By the turn of the century, high schools in America had all but abandoned driver’s education courses.  School funding shortages, the increased academic standards and requirements of the 1980s pushing out elective courses, better teacher pay eliminating the need to moonlight as a driver instructor (Hartford Courant, Jan.7, 2000, p. D1), GLD requirements and course waiting lists causing students to skip it all and wait until they turned 18 (Hartford Courant, Sept. 13, 2005), and questions about the overall efficacy of driver’s education courses and its ability to cut into the growing automobile fatality bar chart, have all been stated as reason’s for the death of high school driver’s education in America and in Connecticut. 

With other pressures on schools and students, the data behind the purpose of offering driver’s education in high schools, that it would develop a nation of safe, responsible, educated drivers, was not compelling enough to finance the effort.

The Yale study done by Dr. Robertson in 1980 stated, “…driver education had little or no effect on the subsequent crash involvement per licensed driver.” 

A 1999 study by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine did a meta-analysis of 9 studies and concluded, “there is no convincing evidence that high school driver education reduces motor vehicle crash involvement rates for young drivers,” and, “there is evidence that these courses are associated with higher crash involvement rates for young drivers.” 

In 2010, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety stated that “the crash rate per mile among drivers aged 16-19 is four times as high as for older drivers,” and “63% of the deaths of 13- to 19-year old passengers in 2000 occurred when other teenagers were driving.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unit of the U.S. Department of Transportation joined the growing anti-driver’s education program movement in 2012.  In a report titled, “A Fresh Look at the State of Driver Education in America,” they stated, “It was once thought that effective driver education and training would reduce the high crash rates of young, novice drivers.  Multiple evaluations of driver education, however, have failed to provide any evidence for decreased crash rates among teen drivers who completed driver education.”

It was 30-years of studies such as these which the University of Nebraska stated in a study of their own states young drivers, that turned state budget folks against financing driver’s education programs in high schools.

However, the University of Nebraska study revealed that young Nebraskan drivers are far better than other young drivers across the fruited plains.  Following 150,000 teen drivers over eight years, the Nebraska study found that “driver’s education significantly reduces crashes and traffic violations among new drivers.” 

Without driver’s education, they stated, 75% of young drivers are more likely to get a traffic ticket, 24% more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury accident, and 16% more likely to have an accident. 

However, the study then included data which resembles much of the data Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez feeds the public – less than impressive.

The Nebraska study published the following data for 151,800 young drivers who obtained their operators permit between 2003 and 2010:

• 11% of those with driver’s education were involved in car crashes, compared with 13% of those who did not take driver’s education.

• 2.1% of those with driver’s education were involved in an accident that caused injury or death, compared to 2.6% of those who did not take driver’s education.

• 10% of students who took driver’s education were ticketed for moving traffic violations, compared to 18% of those who did not take drivers education.

The data shows that the differences between the time and dollar cost of offering driver’s education programs and its results, differs little from the data of folks who just ride a Schwinn until they are 18 years old. Hardly a compelling display of data if you are claiming 30-years of negative studies have been wrong.

Based on a press release from the State of Connecticut in 2018, it appears that convincing them of once again funding high school driver’s education will be an uphill battle.

A series of deadly crashes involving young drivers in Connecticut caused the state to institute strict new regulations and guidelines concerning when, where, and with who, teen drivers would be allowed to operate a motor vehicle.  In 2018, they celebrated the results of the new regulations:

Teen Driver Fatal Crashes on Sharp Decline
Strict Driver-safety Laws for 16/17 Year Olds Reach 10-Year Anniversary

WETHERSFIELD, Conn. -- Department of Motor Vehicle Commissioner Michael Bzdyra joined safety advocates and medical professionals at a press conference today to mark the 10th anniversary of Connecticut’s tougher state driving laws for 16-and 17-year-olds.  Although car crashes are still the leading cause of teen deaths, statistics show these laws in Connecticut are making a difference.  Fatal crashes involving 16-and 17-year-old drivers were more than 150 percent higher when the state had more lenient teen driving laws.  After the GDL laws were passed, teen car crash fatalities went from an average of 18 annually in 2001-2007 to seven per year in 2009-2016, according to Neil Chaudhary, a transportation researcher and owner of Preusser Research Group. And while teen driver fatal crashes per licensed driver nationally have trended upward by 26 percent in the last three years, Connecticut has seen a dramatic 40 percent decline.  

The found studies may have produced data which shows that high school driver’s education courses were as helpful in producing safe, responsible young drivers as the shipping company White Star Lines was in producing a luxury liner which could cross the Atlantic without sinking, but they do not tell the whole story.

As was old Amos Neyhart’s focus in the beginning, none of these studies discuss the quality of education the young drivers were receiving.  How well trained are the trainers?  Are the courses audited and the trainers evaluated?   How comprehensive and rigorous are the in-class courses?  Are kids getting suitable training time behind the wheel?  These points could impact the quality of the driver they eventually put out on the road.  These points are asked of teachers of math, science, and English, but continued failures there do not cause the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater – they get more funding!

With Connecticut’s new, stricter, GDL laws passed in 2008 showing great success in reducing car crash fatalities and a dramatic reduction in overall teen driver car crashes, success achieved without high schools offering driver’s education courses, it’s not a stretch to assume that combining the two would now have a very positive effect on young drivers. 

The stricter CT laws have removed the supposed elephant from the room, educated but dangerous drivers.  Couldn’t it be assumed that driver’s education programs now operating in a stricter legal environment would produce safer drivers and lower negative statistics?

Yes.  Therefor, there is no reason to keep young people from getting a jump start on their adult lives, from changing their economic outlook, and from enjoying an equitable opportunity to participate in an American rite of passage.