Lack of space puts brakes on young drivers’ education

But are students as keen to get those licenses as they have been in the past? And is the issue lack of space in driver’s education classes?

When students wait, dangerous driving can result, says Nancy Andrus, driver training coordinator for the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles.

Once a person is 18, driver education is not a requirement to get a license, and that can be a problem.

“There are quite a few students who are waiting until they’re 18” to pursue driver’s licenses, because there isn’t enough room in school programs, and “we may have students slipping through the cracks without any driver education,” Andrus said.

Seniors and juniors get priority in most schools’ driver-ed programs, and younger students have to wait.

But some aren’t willing to wait, so they try to get into private driver-ed programs, but those aren’t centrally located, and can be costly, Andrus said.

There are 35 private driving schools in the state, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and they can cost up to $800 per student.

Joe McGovern, who runs Green Mountain Driving Academy based in Stowe, says he doesn’t think public schools have the capacity to educate all students of legal driving age.

“I haven’t had a class that isn’t full, (where I) haven’t had to say no to many kids, in a while,” he said.

McGovern says Peoples Academy and Lamoille Union High School have called him to take on overflow of students, and so has more distant Harwood Union High School.

“They have too many kids that don’t make the public school classes. They’re pushing private schools to try to do more than we’re doing,” McGovern said.

The numbers on licensing

According to state data, the period between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018, had the lowest number of 16-year-olds obtaining junior driver’s licenses in the last eight years, but more 16-year-olds obtaining learner’s permits than the prior fiscal year.

In every fiscal year — July 1 to June 30 — since 2010, more 16-year-olds have gotten learner’s permits than driver’s licenses, suggesting that many students wait at least a year after their legal eligibility to pursue learner’s permits.

In the last fiscal year, the largest age cohort to earn a driver’s license was 32-year-olds, 10,013 of whom are now out on the open road by themselves.

In the same period, about 1,000 more 18-year-olds who earned licenses than the number of 17-year-olds who got licenses and therefore were obligated to take a driver’s education course, and more than twice as high as the number of 16-year-olds with licenses.

Closer to home, last school year, 48 students completed a driver’s education program at Harwood Union High School, according to the school district.

That number is on par with the four school years before that; the biggest year had 55 students.

At Stowe High School, 32 students completed the driver’s education course last school year — the most in five years. In 2016, just 18 students took the course.

At Lamoille Union, 104 students finished the class last school year, compared to 139 the year before, and 154 the year before that.

Feel the freedom — or wait

There’s only so much room in public driver’s education programs.

Harwood Union has just one driver’s education instructor, Keith Mullins, who also runs Superior Driving School, which is based at Wesley United Methodist Church in Waterbury.

Every year, Harwood gets 36 $450 vouchers from the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles to help defray the costs of private education for teens who don’t make it into the school’s program.

Stowe High and Peoples Academy also have just one instructor each.

Lamoille Union has three sign-up deadlines per school year, and seniors are prioritized. Students must have a learner’s permit already and be in good academic and behavioral standing.

Just 48 students can take the class per semester at Lamoille Union.

“If they’re frustrated, they can’t get into a program at their school or can’t afford a private driving school, I do think some of them are waiting” until they’re 18 and don’t have to bother with a course, Andrus said.

Or, students might just not want those plastic cards as badly as they have before.

That’s what Paul Dudley thinks; he runs Dudley’s Driving Academy in Waitsfield.

“By and large, they’re less motivated these days. Subjectively, I would say that the world’s getting smaller due to faster connectivity. In layman’s terms, they’re spending more time and more focus on their phones. Getting around in a conventional sense to see people and do things isn’t the motivator that it was,” Dudley said.

McGovern disagrees: “I think it’s just as active as it’s always been. In Stowe, I think so many parents are dropping kids off, as soon as they can drive, it’s a huge benefit.”

He gets mostly 16-year-olds, sophomores or juniors who didn’t make the cutoff to take classes at Stowe High.

He mostly teaches students from Stowe High School or South Burlington’s Rice Memorial High School, turning away students from Waterbury because he has enough on his plate.

Dudley gets between 12 and 14 students per class, and he teaches six classes a year.

He thinks students learn better in private classes such as his, because driving is a different skill than classroom subjects.

“My opinion is that doing it in the school system sort of makes it like another class, and learning to drive is not like learning to make a frittata. It’s definitely more of a life skill,” he said. “I approach it more like coaching a sport than teaching a class.”