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Next Tuesday, March 3, the Public Education Committee in the Texas House will hold a hearing on HB 339, which is authored by State Representative Larry Phillips. This bill is designed to address teen driver safety and includes almost everyone's ideas about how improve it. One of the ideas it contains is a suggestion of Pat Barrett of Driver Ed in a Box®. His idea is that the state would be required to publicly post on an annual basis the teen crash rates of every entity that offers driver education. This would allow the public to examine each school or program and see what kind of record their graduates have. This would be similar to public schools being rated on the performance of their students.
We support this because in 1995 Texas passed a law allowing parents to teach their children to drive using a program approved by DPS (Department of Public Safety). Before it was even implemented, leaders in both the Texas House and Senate tried to repeal the law, and it was the home school community that killed that effort. In almost every legislative session since then, the commercial driving school lobby has sought to make it more difficult for parents to teach their children to drive, and the Texas home school community has killed each and every attempt.
Two years ago they tried to pass a bill requiring parents to take a course before they could teach driver education to their children. Just before the bill was heard, a "study" was released claiming that parent-taught drivers in Texas were much more likely to be involved in fatal accidents than other drivers. THSC issued a press release pointing out the weaknesses of this "study," the purpose of which clearly was to support the effort to make it more difficult for parents to teach their children to drive.
We pointed out that Driver Ed in a Box® paid for a survey of the graduates of their program, and the crash rate of those students was one fifth of the state average. Obviously some parent-taught programs work, and rather than making it illegal or more difficult for parents to teach driver education, the state should take a "free market" approach to the problem and simply report to the public the results of each and every school or program. Then the market will take care of the problem, and the schools and/or programs that do not produce safe drivers will be out of business.
This bill will be considered by the House Public Education Committee on Tuesday, March 3, beginning at 2PM. I urge you to contact these committee members and tell them you support the free market approach of HB 339 to hold entities that teach young people to drive accountable. Read the bill. It contains a lot of measures, and some may not make it through the process, but in my view, the most important element is to let the public know which providers produce safe drivers.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
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17 comments:
My son is 20 yrs old and we did the home/drive course and he has never been in an accident. This is a wonderful program we have available to us, please don't let this change!
I taught my daughter (now 23) to drive using Drivers Ed in a Box. She has never had an accident; she's never had a ticket. My own driving improved as I taught the material to her. It is an excellent program and far exceeds the minimum Texas requirements.
How do they think people learned to drive before there were Driver's Ed schools or even in-a-box? What causes the accidents is not the lack of education, but not paying attention to what is going on around you and reacting appropriately. If home taught students couldn't pass the necessary tests to obtain the state driver's license in the first place there would be a problem with it. That's the test of home taught drivers -- accidents need to be judged by the actual cause of the accident which will not fall within the realm of a lack of knowledge.
Thanks for sharing this info on this bill. I have had 2 kids go thru a home/drive course and one is almost 18 with no accidents or tickets. We used virtual drive instead of driver in the box. My last daughter was in and out of dps in 6 min. with her driver license.
Thanks,
Boys are suppose to be the worst drivers, right? At least, I was (4 accidents in 2 teenage years, 3 my fault). My wife and I have taken 3 of our 5 boys thru the 'box' and no accidents to their names in 12 cummulative years. I agree the free market can take care of itself if government will let it. I will be contacting the committee.
I've taught two with driver ed in a box. Neither have had an accident or a ticket and both are great "bac seat drivers" :-) They are now 20 and 21.
My son went through Drivers Ed at the local high school. When driving with him I was frequently pointing out mistakes he was making and saying "didn't you learn this in Drivers Ed?" He is a great student with a nearly perfect SAT score and a 4.0 GPA so I know it wasn't that he didn't pay attention. Anyway, he keeps saying "Mom, Don't let Celeste (his younger sister) take Driver's Ed through school. Teach her yourself". I have realized that driving is way too important a subject to allow it to be taught incorrectly by someone else.
As a product of public education, I can testify that the "driver education course" I had in high school was a total waste of my time. The "instructor" was a coach who read the handbook to us, which, of course, we could have done on our own. My mom and dad were the ones who taught me to drive. I only went through the formality of a "class" because it was required by state law at the time. I'm thankful to the THSC and HSLDA for fighting for our freedom to make educational choices for our children.
Lets hear it for parents that can teach kids how to drive.THE YOUNGS
Both our sons were homeschooled. The oldest (graduated in 1996) enrolled in a driver's ed. course offered by a driving school here in SW Dallas Co. Our younger son (graduated in 2000) learned to drive using the driver's ed. in a box materials at home. Guess who is the better driver?
Teen safety is very much important. Most of the accidents are caused by teens only. Involving parents in teaching driving for kids is a good step. The DPS program helps the parents and teens a lot.
Jane
I am a Drivers Ed Instructor! I understand both sides of the story. There are SOME parents that do a wonderful job with tyhe students and then ther are those who don't. I also believe that some instructors don'am just glad that the DPS driving test is back for those who teach the home school program!
The DPS driving test is back for all teens.
Thanks for providing the information. This will be very much useful for the teens driving safety. Getting different ideas is better.
Great Information about texas driver education. That sounds pretty cool. Really helpful thanks for the Article, Great job, Keep posting interesting matters here. Looking forward to it. Thanks and keep it up! All the Best.
What can be done to allow families who have recently moved to the state to teach their children to drive. It was a real hardship to devote 8 hours a weeks for four weeks to driving lessons. My son's grades really suffered. But since my husband and I have not had Texas drivers licenses but for a few months we could not teach our son to drive on the weekends. We should have waited for summer, but we wanted to maximize his supervised time behind the wheel. Lots of supervised practice is a priority in other states.
Parents who have moved to Texas CAN teach their children to drive if they have had a drivers license for more than an year in another state. Contact the THSC office if you need help in clarifying this issue to a Texas DPS office in Texas. As a parent you can take as long as you need to teach your child to drive.
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