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"You would not believe the number of parents who don't want to come to our driving school because we won't pick kids up at home," says Debbie Prudhomme, owner of Training Wheels Driver Education in Minnesota and head of the Driving Schools Association of the Americas. "Parents just don't understand." There is a wide variety of quality offered in private driving schools, Prudhomme says. And bigger doesn't necessarily mean better: Some of the smaller schools focus can offer better training than larger schools, which may be more focused on profit. Prudhomme says the best schools use nationally-recognized text books, focusing much of their energy on classroom-based instruction. They offer checklists kids can bring home to their parents to show what skills the student is mastering and which need to be improved. And they don't waste precious instruction time driving from house to house, picking up students in their driveways. Tim Reeter of Glen Carbon, Ill., was basically happy with the driving school his 15-year-old son Cole attended. But he says there are still huge gaps in his skill level: And stopping still seems to be an issue, with Cole rolling through stop signs and sometimes failing to fully stop. Reeter has taken responsibility for a large portion of his son's driving education. "I think he's a really good driver, I feel really comfortable with him behind the wheel," Reeter said. "It's great for me, he drives everywhere we go." For "nuclear" families, that is a common approach. But such parental attention is not always possible for single parent families, or for new immigrant families. Over the past 30 years, there have been two significant developments affecting driver's education in the U.S. – one that plunged driving schools into a national dark ages, and a sad fatal accident 28 years later that will hopefully spark a renaissance. Struggling with accident data that showed teens accounted for one-third of fatal accidents on the road, traffic safety and road planning officials in the 1970s wanted to know what was going on. Then in 1976, a group called Batelle Columbus Laboratories was asked to conduct a study of 16,000 drivers in DeKalb County, Ga., for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. One group of students was given 70 hours of classroom, simulation training and on-road lessons. The second group received only minimal training to pass their driver's test. And the third group received no training at all. The study found there was little difference between all three groups: They had similar accident rates. The only major difference they found was gender: Females had lower rates of crashes than males. The study had a monumental affect on driver's education. Instead of revamping driver's ed to make sure it was effective, it was essentially gutted. With no evidence the programs actually worked, cash-strapped public schools began dropping their programs, leaving the work to the private sector. And for the most part, private driving schools are only loosely regulated. In some states, there are several regulatory bodies that are responsible for driving schools. Ironically, but perhaps not surprising, such bureaucracy results in less regulation, because the process for overseeing is often confusing and muddled. No one tells driving schools what to teach, or checks up to make sure they are actually teaching safe driving behavior. That's the way it was until a Montana crash in 2003 got folks in Washington thinking about driver's ed again. Experts now are gathering evidence to show that good driver's ed programs make a difference. In Oregon, the state mandates teen drivers get 50 hours of practice behind the wheel with an adult. Then they can choose to either do another 50 hours behind the wheel, or take a formal driver's ed program. The teens who take driver's end are getting to 10% to 12% fewer crashes, and getting 20% to 30% fewer citations. The state is one of just a handful that closely regulates and monitors driving programs. You can find brown motors at Tunnel Avenue, Greenwich, London SE10 0SL or visit website BMW and Mercedes servicing for more information.
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