What about a longer drive test? More behind-the-wheel time for students? There’s a long list of ideas beyond that.
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It starts with bringing together the state’s two branches of driver education: public schools, overseen by the state superintendent’s office and commercial schools, overseen by the Department of Licensing.Īfter curriculum, many see teacher training as the next step. There’s no going back to that past, exactly.īut those tasked with achieving the state’s Target Zero goal (zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries by 2030) hope to beef up programs. “We had the best program in the United States,” Brooke said. All for free, thanks to a pot of money filled by traffic fines. There were 45 hours of classroom time and seven hours behind the wheel. Nearly every ninth-grader took the course. Traffic safety instructors and advocates see the move as a much-needed tune-up, and a signal of further changes to come.ĭriver education is coming back into favor after falling victim to a perfect storm of tight budgets, testing-focused school and academic studies questioning its effectiveness.Īrlington High School instructor James Brooke remembers when he started teaching driver ed in 1994. The state Constitution prevents a full merger of those two programs, but the new bill seeks to at least bring consistency to a constantly evolving industry. The bill started elsewhere: as a way to hold public school programs better accountable by bringing them under the same oversight as commercial driving schools. Dave Hayes, R-Camano Island, was the chief sponsor. The work is the result of a new state law that takes effect Aug. A specialist hired by the state Department of Licensing is putting together the list of core concepts, which likely will be rolled out over the next year.