Final days for driver's ed in Wichita district

Wednesday was the last first drive for the Wichita school district driver's education program, which was cut to save $1.1 million next school year.

Rachelle Feuillerat's anxiety filled the car as she took the driver's seat for the first time.

The 15-year-old's whole body tensed when the instructor — parking brake at his feet — asked her to drive through a parking lot, toward a road.

"You're going to put me on the street?" Rachelle asked, her voice at a nervous pitch.

No, not today. But it's important to Rachelle she get there by the end of the summer.

"You do have a sense of freedom," she said. "You're not really a teen — a grownup — until you're able to drive places."

As the district braces for the August closure of the area's largest driver's ed program, grownups worry whether fewer teens will able to drive safely without having had the chance to experience the first nerve-racking ride in driver's ed.

State officials said they hope to try to fill the void by helping families afford commercial driver's ed courses.

But driving experts said that, no matter what, Wichita teen drivers will probably receive lower-quality instruction.

State subsidies

The Kansas Department of Transportation is considering using some of the federal money the state received by passing a primary seat belt law to give teens statewide subsidies to help pay for a commercial driving school.

Driving schools charge about $350 to $375.

"Four hundred dollars is a lot for low-income families to come up with," said Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, D-Wichita, who suggested the subsidy idea to the department.

The Wichita schools program costs a student $272, but many low-income students pay a reduced price.

Of the $11 million total KDOT expects to receive for passing the seat belt law, $1 million is earmarked for the traffic safety division, which runs campaigns to educate Kansans in safety practices and laws.

Faust-Goudeau said the money could be used to sponsor town hall meetings across the state to inform teen drivers of the new seat belt law and texting ban — and possibly offer subsidies for commercial driver's ed programs.

Wichita schools had one of the largest driver's ed programs in the state, and it was one of the few school programs to close this year. The high volume of students, especially those who were low-income, left it most vulnerable to school budget cuts, district leaders said.

Options are being researched by the state traffic safety division on how to use the one-time federal money, including on driver's education, said Pete Bodyk, head of the division.

"There's no final decision where the money is going to go," he said. "A lot of people want a piece of it."

The division will make a decision by September, when a highway safety plan is due in order to collect federal dollars, Bodyk said.

He said traffic safety already runs several proven education programs that need funding, such as seat belts and teen safety.

The problem with driver's ed is there isn't much research to prove the program reduces crashes and increases safety, he said. Driving hours under adult supervision is most important.

"The more they get, the better drivers they become," Bodyk said. "Driver's ed is one piece. They can also do it at home with parents."

Lesser quality?

Driving instruction experts said they know teens will continue to learn to drive despite limited access to formal training, but it will be instruction of significantly lesser quality.

"Parents are not trained on what they need to be taught or how to teach it," said Allen Robinson, CEO of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association.

The association helped write national driver's ed standards, which Kansas uses.

Teens often prefer learning to drive from professionals, Wichita driver's ed instructor Greg Gegen said.

"They didn't like learning from parents because they yell at them," and driving instructors are trained to be calm, he said.

Gegen said he is also concerned about the quality of instruction at commercial schools because some run as few as two weeks, while Wichita students have instruction over six weeks, allowing more driving time with an instructor.

That's if teens can afford a commercial school. When the driver's ed fee for the Wichita schools program increased by $100 to $227 last school year, enrollment for a semester dropped by roughly 75 from the usual 215 students, Gegen said.

"My question is, do you want your own child to learn from a professional or just learning as they go?" he said. "We'll have a lot of people learning as they go."

Schools receive a reimbursement from the state for each driver's ed student. But as money from the Driver Education Fund — paid for with driver's license and vehicle registration fees — was used for other purposes in the state budget, the reimbursement dramatically decreased in the past two years.

The Wichita district will lose about $120,000 in state reimbursements by no longer educating 1,500 driving students a year. But the district saves $1.1 million, mostly in salaries of 14 driver's ed teachers.

"As for the program ending... it's a casualty of the recession," said Gegen, who plans to teach social studies in Wichita next year. "Unfortunately it's one of the casualties that does have long-term effects."

Driver's ed effects

Wichitans shouldn't worry about a rash of fatal or injury accidents with the closing of the Wichita schools driver's ed program, according to driving experts.

The sparse research on how driver's education affects traffic safety is mixed.

Some studies claim driver's ed courses have little effect on crash rates when comparing teen drivers of the same age who took courses with those who didn't. Others link the statewide expansion of accessibility to driver's ed programs with reducing deadly and injury crashes.

But fatal crashes aren't a good indicator of the quality of driving instruction because teens are involved in so few, said Robinson, of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association.

Forty-seven drivers ages 15 to 19 were involved in 348 fatal crashes in 2008, with the 20-24 and 40-44 age groups being involved in more, according to KDOT records. Teen drivers were involved in the most nonfatal injury accidents of all age groups, at 3,603 accidents.

Most of the effects are tough to measure, such as property damage in unreported fender-benders, Robinson said.

"We may see a lot of incidents of several thousands of dollars," he said. "But I don't think we'll see (more deadly crashes)."

The biggest impact on the community could be to the economy and to school activities if teens are unable to drive to stores or after-school events, he said.

A chance to participate in extracurricular activities is why 16-year-old twins Monet and Symone Hickman-Lynch said they're relieved they got a spot in Wichita's last driver's ed course. They are students at Maize South High School, but they couldn't find a spot in the Maize program.

Without licenses, they've been walking most places.

A higher fee would make taking driver's ed more difficult, but they said the formal training is important.

"We really want to drive safely," Monet said. "I was in an accident. It was not pretty."

She said she suffered a fractured jaw and a ruptured disc in her back.

And they said they didn't want to learn driving from their dad, who lives in Wichita and plans to buy them a car.

"I tell him to stop texting and driving, put on your seat belt," Monet said.

"We're the leaders of safe driving in our family."

This story was originally published June 12, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Final days for driver's ed in Wichita district."