Ideas for training better young drivers

Jim Starks, a retired state trooper, asked if I remembered the most difficult part of the road test I took when I was 16 to get my driver’s license.

Parallel parking?

“That’s probably right,” he said. “You ever see anyone killed parallel parking?”

When teenage drivers die in accidents, it’s often because they don’t know how to react when something goes wrong at high speeds.

“Everybody makes mistakes driving,” Starks said. “But it’s what you do after you make a mistake that often determines whether you live or die.”

Starks was one of several people who called to respond to my column last Friday about how people drive too fast on rural roads. The column was prompted by a crash last week that killed two young people whose car ran off a rural Woodford County road and hit a tree.

The callers all made the same point: We could save a lot of lives if Kentucky teens got more intensive training behind the wheel. Not only would it help them survive their teenage years, but it would give them skills to keep them and others on the highways safe for the rest of their lives.

Driver’s education classes were once a high school staple. But many have disappeared because of lack of funding, insurance costs, liability concerns and a need to focus more instructional time on academics that are measured in standardized tests. Fayette County Public Schools, for example, no longer teach driver’s education.

Kentucky started tightening license requirements for teenage drivers in the mid-1990s after statistics showed the state had the nation’s highest death rate. The toughest rules came in 2006 when Kentucky adopted a graduated license system that requires more training and experience before young drivers can receive full licenses.

Graduated licenses and tougher seat belt laws are thought to be two reasons for a drop in Kentucky traffic deaths during the past two years. Only about 6 percent of Kentucky drivers are teenagers, yet they’re involved in about 20 percent of all crashes.

Starks said he investigated many traffic accidents during his 27 years as a trooper and state police detective. He saw the same thing over and over: Teen drivers would encounter a problem, overcompensate and crash.

So, in 1992, he and other law enforcement officers in Woodford County decided to do something about it. They found a narrow road in a county park, added a skid pad and got some old police cruisers. They gave serious hands-on training to young people as part of a driver’s education class at Woodford County High School.

During the five years the program was operating, no teens died in Woodford County accidents, said Starks, who retired in 1998.

“I think we saved several lives,” he said. “And I think if we did this on a statewide basis we would save a lot of lives.”

Richard Stafford, a Ph.D. student in public policy, agrees. He is developing a driver’s training program he hopes Kentucky will adopt. Stafford said he has received encouragement from Transportation Secretary Joe Prather and his predecessor, Bill Nighbert.

Part of Stafford’s idea is to use old state cars for driver’s training. He also would hire former police officers, who retire relatively young with decades of valuable traffic safety experience, to work part-time as driving instructors.

“A secondary benefit would be these kids being able to interact in a positive way with law enforcement officers,” he said.

Although Stafford said he is still developing his plan, he thinks it could be done statewide for about $10 million a year.

Another possible solution could be high-tech driving simulators, which get cheaper and more sophisticated all the time.

“Anything you can encounter on the street, we can do in here,” said Ronnie Day, director of the Kentucky Fire Commission, which owns one of the nation’s most advanced mobile driving simulators.

The commission, a part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, uses the simulator to train law enforcement and emergency personnel to drive firetrucks, ambulances and police cruisers.

“It’s similar to a video game, but much more sophisticated,” said Charlie Shaw, who manages the simulator. “I think it certainly could have a place in the school systems.”

There seems to be no shortage of good ideas for reducing highway carnage; smart people just have to figure out how to make them happen.

I think our kids are worth it. Do you?