I just finished reading an article, AOL.AUTOS  “Teen Drivers Making Common and Fatal Mistakes” by Sharon Silke Carty, that was forwarded to me by a fellow board Member of the Maine Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association (MEDTSEA). I responded with a thank you for him forwarding me the article. I doubt “thank you” was enough. What I took away from the articles, there is a follow up as well, is this question, “What is my goal when teaching Drivers Education?”  Am I teaching how to drive, how to be a safe driver, or am I teaching to the driving test?  I am a parent of a 15 year old who has her permit. But until this morning I was one of the following “…parents in many states get in line at their local Department of Motor Vehicles on their children’s 16th birthday to help their kids get access to one of the most dangerous activities they will ever do. The same parents who wrapped their coffee table corners in foam when their children were learning to walk, who insisted their children wear helmets to ride a tricycle, and who would never dream of letting their 16-year-old parachute out of a plane, hand over the keys to the car and, fingers crossed, pray their children will come home…”

“Our culture treats the process of getting a license as a right of passage, when it should be more akin to getting a pilot’s license. Indeed, many parents are relived when their sixteen and seventeen year-olds get licenses, cutting down on the amount of chauffeuring they have to do to school and friends’ houses.”

.. When adults talk to teens about driving, they tend to talk about being responsible. Don’t text, they say. Don’t drink. Wear your seatbelt. Be responsible. Most adults take the act of driving so much for granted after so many years of doing it that they have forgotten what it was like to first drive at 15, 16 or 17. (The legal driving ages in several states is 15, including Idaho, Hawaii, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana and New Mexico, South Carolina and Wyoming. The legal driving age in South Dakota is 14.) …”