SWEETWATER COUNTY — Even though both Rock Springs High School (RSHS) and Green River High School (GRHS) have driver education programs, RSHS’s program is provided with limited participation. Driver education programs are facing critical challenges that result in some of the programs across Wyoming going into extinction, leaving teenage drivers to hopefully learn the rules of the road from their parents, or on their own.
“Second brake” vehicles used in driver education programs are going away, according to Stephanie Harsha, Wyoming Department of Transportation District 3 Senior Public Relations Specialist. Teen drivers are having fewer training options, particularly for on-the-road training.
“School budgets and the difficulty of getting insurance are the primary reasons” for the decline in the numbers of driver education programs in general, Harsha said. “Insurance for student driver vehicles is becoming harder to get.”
And with school budgets needing to focus first and foremost upon teaching reading, writing and mathematics, driver training programs can too often feel the cutting ax.
Harsha added that high school health and safety classes may touch in some small ways upon driver safety, but not as a core part of the curriculum.
The Wyoming Highway Patrol does offer a program titled “Alive at 25” which discusses some of the most common mistakes made by younger drivers in their teens and early to mid 20s. However, Alive at 25 does not take the place of comprehensive driver training.
“’Alive at 25’ is not a substitute for a driver’s education program,” declared Lt. Kyle P. McKay of the Wyoming Highway Patrol’s Safety and Training Division based in Cheyenne.
McKay added in an email interview, “The typical driver’s education program will consist of several hours of training behind the wheel of a vehicle with an instructor by its side. Alive at 25 is a 4 ½ hour class designed by the National Highway Safety Council that educates young drivers between the ages of 15 and 25 on the most common mistakes made behind the wheel that are killing or injuring young drivers within that age group. Students learn through interactive media, workbook exercises, role-playing and class discussions.”
The driver’s education teacher at GRHS, Nick Hokanson, described his school’s program consisting of 30 hours of training, with six hours of behind-the-wheel experience—three hours in the back of the school and three hours of driving out on the road.
RSHS Principal Glen Suppes said that the driver ed program there is funded by a grant from the Sweetwater Board of Cooperative Educational Services (SBOCES), and has had less than 20 students participating, under instructor Fred Bath. There is drive time training as part of this class. While both school districts are offering some type of driver’s education programs, with it being limited to only so many students many are left wondering what the rest of the students do.
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series looking at the challenges of teen driving in Sweetwater County.
