Driver's ed could get a revamp

With one young North Carolina driver dying every three days, legislative changes could be proposed by January

North Carolina will spend $33 million this school year on a generations-old rite of passage: driver's education. But there is little evidence that the program's 30 hours in the classroom and six behind the wheel help young people avoid crashes.

"There's a pretty widespread belief that this is an antiquated system," said UNC-Chapel Hill professor Rob Foss, an adviser to state government on highway safety.

"It's analogous to saying, 'Let's take a class of high-school kids who have never held a basketball, give them 30 hours in the classroom and six hours hands-on,' and say, 'Now we have taught you to play basketball.' "

The state medical examiner's office, alarmed by the number of deaths with young drivers at the wheel, recently asked a state task force to reconsider driver's education with an eye to proposing changes to legislators by January. The goal is to reduce crashes that killed more than 1,200 North Carolina drivers age 20 or younger between 1997 and 2006 -- roughly one every three days.

Attempts to remake driver's ed could bring a clash in the legislature. Between employees paid to teach more than 100,000 students per year and lobbying support for keeping the system in place, an overhaul is unlikely to arrive smoothly.

"There are a number of other states that have cut their programs and are regretting it," said Connie Sessoms, driver-education specialist for Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools.

Companies that contract with each county to train Tar Heel drivers say there's unquestionable value in the program; officials at Jordan Driving School, which trains tens of thousands of young drivers a year in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, said the company has already revamped its programs.

"I've seen studies come and go," said Crawford Jobe, a veteran driving teacher who trains and evaluates instructors at Jordan. "This approach is the best thing I've seen."

Jordan has developed its own driver's education computer program, training manual and video in recent years. Still, president Lorraine Jordan said, there's room for improvement in the state-supported program, one of the few remaining in the United States.

"I think a law needs to be passed that the parents have to log a certain number of hours driving with their children," Jordan said.

Little difference found

Those who question the value of traditional driver's education cite decades of research, including a landmark DeKalb County, Ga., study from 1983. The study showed that teens who went through driver training had no fewer accidents and tickets than those who did not.

During the last 25 years, most state school systems have removed driver's education as part of the school day. In most states, parents pay private instructors or teach their children themselves. However, the word that driver's ed may not get the job done can surprise people who went through it.

"I was surprised when I first heard that -- now I've just accepted that it's not worth much," said state Sen. Austin Allran, a Hickory Republican who is a member of the committee of the Child Fatality Task Force that will examine driver education.

Critics of state-supported driver's education, including some students, say the course fails to deal with the realities and dangers of 21st-century driving, relies too heavily on classroom instruction and misses the chance to use new technologies.

"I think a lot of (classroom instruction) was common sense, but we kind of needed to do it to pass the test," said Karan Sethi, 15, a rising East Chapel Hill School sophomore who took driver's ed this summer.