Driver Education

Congratulations on your Oct. 12 editorial calling for steps to address the rash of recent pedestrian traffic deaths. One of your steps refers to restoring driver education and driver training to our public schools. Given that there are far more deaths and injuries from traffic collisions on our highways than from any other cause for young people, does it not seem sensible to include such instruction in our schools? Unfortunately, in recent years state officials have diverted traffic fine money collected away from high school driver training to other programs.

In states that don't have driver education requirements, more than one in three students got a license without any formal driver ed training, a study finds. A representative sample of 1,770 ninth through 11th graders from across the country were asked about their participation in driver education programs. Among them, 78.8% had taken part in a formal driver ed course. A typical class, according to the study, consists of 30 hours of classroom training and six hours of behind the wheel instruction with a certified instructor.

In states that don't have driver education requirements, more than one in three students got a license without any formal driver ed training, a study finds. A representative sample of 1,770 ninth through 11th graders from across the country were asked about their participation in driver education programs. Among them, 78.8% had taken part in a formal driver ed course. A typical class, according to the study, consists of 30 hours of classroom training and six hours of behind the wheel instruction with a certified instructor.

Anyone who's driven on the 405 Freeway during rush hour understands: “L.A. is the driving capital of the U.S.,” said Carolyn Duchene, director of a new Mercedes-Benz Driving Academy for teens that is holding its first class in L.A. Saturday. The school is the second to be opened by the German car maker, which will be displaying an Academy vehicle and recruiting students during this week's L.A. Auto Show. “We chose L.A. because kids are being forced onto the roads regardless of whether they want to drive or not,” Duchene said.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to establish California's second municipally operated driver education program for traffic offenders. Drivers would be excused from paying their fines in return for attending the school, which would produce city revenue projected at $40,000 a month. But the fate of the classes will depend on the Legislature.

Amos Neyhart, 91, known as the father of driver education classes in the United States. An assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, he became convinced in 1931 that teen-agers should be taught how to drive safely after a drunk driver hit his parked car. He started the nation's first driver education course by teaching volunteer students from State College High School, using his own 1929 Graham-Paige automobile.

Free classes in driver education for high school students will be offered in January and February in Brea and Fullerton. The sessions are open to students 15 or older living in North County and are offered by the North Orange County Community College District. Students can register at the first meeting. The instruction is for the classroom portion of driver education only. It does not involve actual driving.

Sierra's new driver education program is designed to help people like me learn to drive. I'm a 15-year-old with a learner's permit, and I did learn at least one important lesson from this program. After hours of fruitlessly trying to calibrate the control panel that came with the driving simulation, I learned that it is extremely difficult to control a car when you have to hold the brakes down continually just to keep from peeling out and blasting over the speed limit.

A plan that would turn driver education instruction over to a private firm and return a mathematics instructor to the classroom will be considered by the school board tonight. Under the proposal, the Laguna Beach Unified School District no longer would use staff time to teach driving to Laguna Beach High School students, said district Supt. Billy J. Barnes. Instead, the district would hire a private firm to give both classroom and field instruction.

When it comes to auto safety, the most basic and seemingly simple issues are sometimes the least understood. The auto industry invests billions of dollars each year in technology to make cars safer. Laws are passed by legislators every year with the intent to make roads safer. And experts debate endlessly about whether teens or older people should be denied some or all driving privileges. But all this ignores some rudimentary matters, such as which foot you brake with.

DALLAS -- Tim Thomas and Mike Dunleavy agree. Both say that Thomas, who has been limited by a sprained right ankle in recent games, should attack the rim more often. "I've been doing that of late, just knowing that my shot hasn't really been going," Thomas said. "I've been limited as far as moving and planting on my ankle, but that's one of the things I'm trying to work on now."

AS memorable adolescent experiences go, viewing one of the California Highway Patrol's "Red Asphalt" films ranks right up there with your first kiss or having your parents come home early to find a kegger in full swing. For generations, the lights have dimmed, the screen has flickered, and like young Alex in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," the state's youngest drivers have been compelled to watch this strange and enduring rite of passage.

When it comes to auto safety, the most basic and seemingly simple issues are sometimes the least understood. The auto industry invests billions of dollars each year in technology to make cars safer. Laws are passed by legislators every year with the intent to make roads safer. And experts debate endlessly about whether teens or older people should be denied some or all driving privileges. But all this ignores some rudimentary matters, such as which foot you brake with.

Three years licensed but with little actual driving experience, 19-year-old Scott Owens is itching to slide behind the wheel of the 2005 Chevrolet Impala, the test car for this session of a unique driving program. As he waits his turn, he's just like any other teenage boy promised the keys to Dad's car -- fidgety, with a broad smile across his face.

Like most of her classmates at Laguna Hills High School, Kayte Greenfelder took driver's education at 16. She sat through the grainy old death-on-the-asphalt movies, memorized the handouts on rights-of-way and traffic signals, even went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and got a learner's permit. Somehow, though, she never got around to actually getting her license.

The last thing the Bammers wanted was litigation. They believed in forgiveness, they said, and had faith that it was God's job, not the courts', to balance the scales. But when the parents of the drunk driver who killed their daughter failed to express remorse, they got an attorney and sued. "We prayed a lot about it," Nancy Bammer said of the family's decision to sue the parents of one of their daughter's friends. "It really wasn't for economics; there was a need to get the word out."

Teen-agers in increasing numbers may be hitting the streets of Orange County without behind-the-wheel training and or even driver's licenses, some teachers and state officials say. "What you are seeing now is a lot of illegal driving," said Richard Fischl, a longtime teacher of driver education at Anaheim's Katella High School. This is one of the most distressing results, critics contend, of the loss of driver education's once-lofty status in public high schools.

Mazda's Rev It Up event in Irvine this weekend might be the best opportunity to embrace your inner Andretti -- without risking flashing lights in your rear-view mirror. The two-day event is free for those who just want to kick the tires of new-model Mazdas. But to lure those with a need for speed, the company is also staging an inexpensive performance-driving school and competition. Three skills clinics will be taught before it's time to face the track.

In this classroom of students, 55-year-old Renee Palmer is a relative youngster. The assistant principal of a Hollywood elementary school believes wholeheartedly in continuing education. So it feels natural, she said, to take a course to improve her driving skills. "I can no longer be in denial, the fact that I am aging," said Palmer, looking up from a workbook at a recent Santa Monica class for senior drivers. "The response time is not as quick as it was when you're younger."