A closer look at private driver ed

The picture’s right there in the yearbook: A teenager smiling sheepishly in the high school parking lot while holding parts that had been attached to the driver ed car before she got in a minor accident during her behind-the-wheel training.

That was decades ago, back when driver ed was a semester-long rite of passage for nearly every high school sophomore. It was taught by high school teachers and showed up on the student’s report card. An accident was rare enough to command the student photographer’s full attention.

Now, the picture is much different. Suburban high schools don’t particularly want to be in the business of training drivers. Students don’t particularly want to tie up a daily classroom slot that they could otherwise fill with college prep requirements, an elective or a study period.

So since that fender-bender photo in the late 1970s, the number of Illinois teens taking high school driver ed has dropped 40 percent. Public schools are charging as much as $700 for the class, says state Sen. Susan Garrett, giving families every incentive to seek private driver ed instruction outside school hours.

That’s where the problem arises.

Instructors with commercial companies offering driving classes to teenagers don’t have as much experience as their public school counterparts, experts testified Tuesday during a hearing on driver training for teens. There’s no standardized curriculum across the state, Daily Herald Staff Writer Marni Pyke pointed out in her story Wednesday. And while there surely are private companies that do a good job, parents have few ways to judge which ones they are and thus often simply opt for the company with the cheapest rates or most flexible schedule.

We see no problem with teens taking driver ed outside of school through a commercial company as long as their families are willing to pay for it (public school driver ed fees are waived for low-income students). But Illinois should take seriously the responsibility of setting a curriculum requiring that teen drivers be taught more than the basics they need to pass the driver’s license exam.

One bill introduced by Garrett, a Lake Forest Democrat, deserves support for requiring driver ed teachers to have completed three accredited courses in areas including driver task analysis, vehicle operation and instructional skills.

Teen driver deaths are down significantly in Illinois, presumably related to 2008 requirements that drivers under 18 complete 50 hours of practice with parents before being licensed and restrictions on late-night driving, number of passengers and phone use for young drivers.

Those changes helped make Illinois one of the leading states in setting standards to improve the safety of teen drivers. Now, a few steps focused on the quality of driver training would move our state even closer to that goal.