FOR SOME REASON, police and motoring associations persist in claiming that better driver education only makes teen drivers over-confident and so continue to campaign against it.
If we were to apply the same logic to teaching kids to swim, the argument would be that once they know how to swim, they’ll become over-confident, and be more likely to get into difficulties in the surf. So let’s leave them totally and utterly unprepared for a day on an Australian beach.
Funnily enough, airline pilots are required to undergo rigorous training, regular retraining and prove their skills and knowledge on a regular basis. It’s good enough for pilots, but obviously not for drivers. And nobody argues that rigorous and regular training makes pilots over-confident or should be abandoned.
Adding to the argument for more training rather than less, a recent study by the AAA (Automobile Association of America) found that driver education reduces teen crash rates by 4.3 percent and lowers the number of traffic infringement notices by nearly 40 percent.
The simple fact is, even if some of us can’t remember back that far, one of the characteristics of youth is a sense of invincibility. Another problem is that young males are simply genetically hard-wired to take risks. And then there’s the ever-present problem of the need to impress one’s peers.
If you’re a parent or grandparent, you have good reason to be concerned, and encouraging your children or grandchildren to improve their skills and driving knowledge is simply common sense. You may even like to think about buying them a defensive driving course for a birthday or Christmas present. Especially since it may save their (or someone else’s) life.
Effective driver training addresses the issues that most affect inexperienced drivers: it brings home the very real risks to young drivers who always have the attitude of “it won’t happen to me”; it alerts young people to the fact that they do have the option of not getting in a car with a drunk, drugged or otherwise dangerous driver; and it always, but always, hammers home the message that a single poor decision on the roads can have tragic consequences (and, apparently, the most motivating message for young drivers is not that they may kill themselves or someone else but they may end up crippled or quadriplegic… a far more threatening and motivating outcome).
The study used data from Oregon and Manitoba (Canada) and assessed information accumulated through surveys, licence tests, driving simulators and reviews of additional records. The AAA had access to 93,942 detailed teen driving records from Oregon. It showed that teen motorists who had taken driver education classes had elevated knowledge about graduated driving laws and safe driving practices when compared to drivers who hadn’t undertaken such classes.
Even those who had taken the courses demonstrated overall driving knowledge levels that were “still quite low”.
In the US, as elsewhere, traffic crashes are the leading cause of unintentional death for US residents aged between 15 and 24. Traditional driver education has actually declined in large part due to tighter budgets or liability concerns in public schools. However, the availability of such courses is still widespread, with some public schools contracting private driver training companies, using online training courses and making greater use of simulators which are inexpensive and zero-risk.