Many driver’s education courses in the public schools are gone now, victims of budget cuts and test-score concerns. Driver’s ed never improved any school’s test scores, unfortunately. My local schools still offer driver’s education but, in many areas now, the only options are private, for-pay schools. Still, a few, hearty driver’s ed teachers are still hitting the road in our public schools.

They get into the car with adolescents who sometimes have zero experience behind a wheel. For that alone, they deserve a medal. (Either that or maybe a psych evaluation…) Nerves of steel or no sense at all, they are the people who launch many of America’s teen-age drivers. They sit patiently while cars jerk, jump and bounce over curbs. They provide advice about using mirrors to students who appear to be relying on telepathy to tell them the location of nearby cars. They emphasize the need to brake to students who instinctively hit the gas. They sit patiently while other students tap, tap, tap and sometimes nonstop wham, wham, wham that brake.

The push toward online learning has created online driving courses. In the end, though, our young drivers have to get behind the wheel and find their gas pedals. While I am writing this post, I’ll salute the parents and private driving instructors who nervously sit, strapped and trapped in passenger seats, as sixteen-year-old kids take the helm and head down the road.