This past year, my daughter turned sixteen, and embarked on a rite of passage for American teenagers. As part of obtaining her driver’s license, she participated in a Driver Education program. In her case, this involved seven hours of driving on public roads, along with an instructor and two other teens. The Ford Fusion used for her program, as well as the traffic situations, may be modern, but the program’s overall format is nearly a century old. In fact, the entire field of Driver Education traces its existence to a Pennsylvania engineering professor who developed an interest in teaching young people to drive. Or, as he put it, “engineering drivers.” That professor, Amos Neyhart, channeled his interests in driving and industrial safety to spark a unique idea at just the right time. And people have been learning to drive using many of his original methods ever since.
Amos Neyhart was born in 1898, as one of ten children to the family of a laborer in Central Pennsylvania. Though born in Willamsport, his family moved shortly afterwards to Milton, about 20 miles downstream along the Susquehanna River. At the time of his upbringing, Pennsylvania was one of the world’s largest silk producers, and Neyhart began working as a teen in the Susquehanna Silk Mill, joining seven siblings and much of his borough’s population in doing so. However, his journey didn’t end in the silk mills. After graduating from Milton High School, Neyhart enrolled at Pennsylvania State College (now University), located 70 miles away. He graduated in 1921 with a degree in industrial engineering, and returned to his hometown.
Once back home, Amos and an older brother founded their own shirtmaking firm, called the Pilgrim Shirt Co. The young entrepreneurs were successful, and within two years, their company produced 3,500 shirts per week, employing several dozen women to operate the machines. In 1923, the Neyhart brothers sold their company to a New York investor (presumably for a healthy profit), and Amos returned to Susquehanna Silk, this time as a production and operating engineer. Amos Neyhart spent the next seven years working for the silk mill, supervising many aspects of the plant’s operations.
Years of supervising industrial operations gave Neyhart an interest in applied technology, and in 1930, he returned to his alma mater, joining Penn State as an assistant professor of industrial engineering.
Incidentally, Neyhart’s exit from the silk mills was propitious. Pennsylvania’s silk industry collapsed during the 1930s, driven by declining demand during the Great Depression. As an aside for those interested in industrial history, Susquehanna Silk Mill closed in 1936. Its facility was purchased by Hector Boiardi a few years later, and used as headquarters for his quasi-eponymous company, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Quality Foods.
Like many new professors, Neyhart searched for a teaching and research niche. Safety interested him, in part because at the mills, he had witnessed his share of industrial mishaps, most of which he felt were easily preventable with proper training. Neyhart soon developed an interest in traffic safety as well. Some sources point to the foundation of this interest being a drunk driving accident he witnessed in Milton, but whatever the origin, it soon became a consuming passion.
And the 1930s were virtually begging for a dedicated advocate of traffic safety. Traffic had changed a great deal in a few short years. The days of driving with goggles and dusters were far behind, and in their place were more powerful cars, more complicated roads, and a volume of vehicles that would have been unimaginable just a decade earlier. In 1920, the US had 9 million vehicles; by 1930, there were 27 million.
Widely available cars brought unprecedented freedom, but also came with a dark side. 1935 witnessed 827,000 auto accidents in the United States, resulting in 37,000 deaths and over 1 million injuries. In perspective, that’s a similar number of annual US driving fatalities as seen in the 2020s, but with only one-tenth the number of vehicles.
That’s not to say that traffic safety went completely unaddressed. Since the late 1910s, civic organizations, police departments, insurance companies and others brought more order to the roads. Traffic tickets debuted around 1920 (beforehand, violators were taken directly to court), as well as police traffic squads. Under Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover’s guidance, the federal government convened a National Conference on Street and Highway Safety in 1924. That Conference proposed a Uniform Vehicle Code two years later. These efforts may have helped, but by the time Neyhart entered the field, road safety was still an unrelenting concern.
Neyhart recognized that ideas aimed at training new drivers were conspicuously absent from most traffic safety efforts. People of the day learned to drive in a rather informal manner, usually with someone taking them out on a country road and letting them find out on the fly how to operate a 2,000-lb. car. Neyhart realized that many drivers didn’t fully understand traffic laws, vehicle dynamics, important safety practices, or – importantly – the consequences of their own actions. Drawing on his prior industrial safety work at the mills, Neyhart said:
“I learned that you made no headway with your safety programs until you convinced the employee that he had a personal stake in accident prevention.”
To Neyhart, that meant teaching emerging drivers that what they do on the roads can have a profound impact on their own future, and that of others.
Neyhart went to work with an engineer’s precision and a professor’s passion. In the early 1930s, he wrote a book on the safe operation of motor cars. Pursuing a master’s degree in psychology and education, he wrote a thesis titled “The Relation of the Training and Other Characteristics of Automobile Drivers to Their Proneness to Accidents.” While researching his material, Neyhart became convinced that teaching nascent drivers could produce significant societal results – or, as he noted, “Get ’em before they learn bad habits.” In 1933, Neyhart acted on these ideas.
That year, Neyhart trained his first cohort of drivers. Over the summer, he taught 60 completely new drivers how to operate a car. He did this at his own expense, and using his own vehicle, a 1929 Graham-Paige outfitted with redundant passenger-side clutch and brake pedals that he had designed.
Thirty-six students took advantage of Neyhart’s offer, ranging in age from 16 to 60. The professor reported that all learned to drive successfully, and without inflicting even minor damage to his Graham-Paige. Neyhart submitted his findings to the National Safety Council (NSC), an organization focused on industrial and community safety. The NSC were impressed, but noted that the time and expense involved in his work made large-scale replication infeasible. Between the instruction time, fuel, and car maintenance, Neyhart estimated the endeavor cost him $17.73 (around $450 in modern dollars) per student.
Realizing that a group approach would more efficiently use time and resources – and that teenagers were the most logical target for such a venture – Neyhart modified his approach to fit a classroom format. He didn’t go far to find customers. The principal of nearby State College High School agreed to let Neyhart teach 20 boys and girls a course on the “safe operation of the motor vehicle” in 1935. This was a novel approach. While some high schools offered courses on roadway regulations, an on-road driving course had never before been offered to high schoolers.
Neyhart didn’t bear the high school course’s cost alone, but instead was helped by contributions from fraternal organizations and parent-teacher groups. The eventual cost for each student’s family ended up being $10-$12.
True to his engineering roots, Neyhart made the first part of his course mechanical. He sourced a stripped-down car chassis, and together with a local mechanic, taught students about vehicle dynamics, suspensions and engines.
The remainder of his course consisted of both classroom and behind-the-wheel instruction – a combination that is still the basis for Driver Education ninety years later. Specifically, Neyhart provided his students with 30 classroom hours explaining rules of the road and vehicle operation, and 8 hours behind the wheel.
Again, Neyhart used his own car, but this time took students out in groups of four (a driver, plus three ‘observing’ students in the back seat), a practice that’s still common today, though usually with just two in the back seat. Using his interest in psychology to enhance students’ learning, Neyhart figured that the observers would learn from what the driver does both right and wrong… and the driver would strive to do the best job possible to impress his peers.
Driving instruction began with Neyhart teaching novice drivers low-speed maneuvers such as shifting, starting and stopping. This was done in a parking lot marked with lines and scattered with stanchions indicating hypothetical obstacles such as curbs. Eventually, the Borough of State College offered Neyhart use of a road on the edge of town, which he likewise painted to replicate traffic patterns and parking spaces. Either way, students learned to judge the dimensions of their car using stanchions at slow speed, which Neyhart explained was critical to learning safe and effective driving. Then, students graduated to driving on real roads.
Each student drove 80 miles on a combination of town and country roads. At the course’s conclusion, Neyhart asked Pennsylvania’s Motor Vehicle Commissioner to arrange for his students to receive “an especially stiff drivers’ license examination.” They all passed.
Neyhart, of course, was thrilled but not surprised. While his public passion was safety, the father of Driver Education also loved driving. Said Neyhart about a young driver obtaining his license: “Until that vague tomorrow when he can solo a helicopter, few days will outshine it.” His students undoubtedly agreed.
The National Safety Council monitored Neyhart’s class and immediately recommended his approach to others. This was clearly an idea whose time had come, and due to publicity from the NSC and the American Automobile Association (AAA), within a few years, hundreds of high schools nationwide offered some form of driver education. However, replicating Neyhart’s approach was challenging, not just due to funding, but also a lack of expertise. Professor Neyhart’s next focus was to increase the number of driving instructors.
In 1936, Neyhart offered a course at Penn State to teach people to become driving instructors. Like with Driver Education itself, the movement to conduct this kind of training took off rapidly. Later that year, Neyhart took a sabbatical, and travelled the country teaching people (largely high school teachers) how to conduct Driver Education classes similar to what he taught in State College. This task of “teaching teachers” became the thrust of Neyhart’s work for the next three decades.
Yet another sign of the swelling interest in Driver Ed was that it began to attract sponsors. Pontiac Motor Company teamed up with the AAA to supply dual-control cars to local governments and school districts. In 1936, Pontiac supplied twelve “Dual Control Driver Training Cars,” doubling that number the next year.
By this time, Neyhart had become the United States’ foremost expert on auto and driver safety, and the AAA adopted his instructional approach to be used in national Driver Education programs. Neyhart and AAA referred to appropriate and virtuous driving as “Sportsmanlike Driving.” That term eventually became the title of AAA’s driving textbook, which was the most common American driver’s manual for decades.
Due to Neyhart’s expertise, he was consulted on a variety of topics. One such topic was the relative skill of drivers by sex, since there was a widely held belief that men drove better than women. Neyhart dispelled that myth, saying that both men and women could be similarly effective drivers (with proper instruction, of course). He did note, however, that his experience of analyzing accident rates demonstrated that women may have slightly more accidents numerically, but those accidents are typically less severe than men’s wrecks. Neyhart’s take on other matters was interesting as well. He said that the safest drivers are those between 45 and 50 (probably still true). And as a frequent traveler, his take on various cities was often intriguing. When in Denver for a consulting assignment, for example, he opined that that city had the country’s worst-behaved pedestrians.
Between Neyhart’s traveling and training sessions, and burgeoning support from safety groups, Driver Education gained more traction than Neyhart thought possible. He taught driving instruction to several thousand schoolteachers in the 1930s; however the indefatigable professor didn’t stop there. In the latter part of that decade, he took up the cause of driving instruction for commercial operators as well.
For commercial operations, instead of holding classes for school teachers, Neyhart taught fleet managers how to best train truck drivers. In addition to similar techniques used for teaching teens (road and parking courses with lots of stanchions), Neyhart also advocated for commercial drivers to undergo attitude tests and numerous physical checks. This approach quickly attracted sponsors from the trucking industry, which set up a National Standard for Fleet Supervisor Training. Within a decade, Neyhart had trained thousands of fleet operators, and one in ten US truckers had received training through a Neyhart-designed program.
The need for commercial driver training continued during World War II, though fuel and tire rations put a damper on teaching high schoolers to drive. But the urgent requirement for driver training shifted to the US military. Neyhart was in on this as well. In 1942, he visited Fort Francis E. Warren in Wyoming to instruct army officers in the best ways to teach Army recruits to drive. Pretty soon, the Army’s pre-induction training centers taught soon-to-be soldiers to operate everything from jeeps to tanks using Neyhart’s methods.
The war also brought the task of teaching civilians new skills. In the above photo, Professor Neyhart is helping Virginia Beers, wife of a US Farm Security Administration official, master precision driving techniques. Mrs. Beers was among several dozen “society women” with the American Red Cross Volunteer Motor Corps who offered to shuttle convalescing servicemen and their families around Washington, DC. The women were trained how to drive precisely, and smoothly at the same time – Neyhart placed a milk bottle on the rear floorboard, and his students were to navigate a road course without tipping the bottle.
Once the war ended, Driver Education in high school bounced back quickly. Many school systems saw Driver Ed as an important element of civics, in addition to a safety benefit. Some schools leaned heavily into this new program, even installing road courses on their grounds. The above picture shows such a course at Detroit’s Pershing High School. And for those interested, as of 2026, the course – though long unused – is still in place next to the school’s ball fields (Google Maps aerial link here).
Through the postwar years, Neyhart intensified his outreach to governments, organizations and private companies throughout North America. Travelling on average 100,000 mi. a year on aircraft and tens of thousands more by car, Neyhart lectured almost constantly on safety education. Nominally, he was still a professor, but his other titles – head of Penn State’s Institute of Public Safety, and senior consultant to the AAA – used up most of his time.
By 1960, an estimated 12,000 US high schools offered Driver Education classes, just 25 years after Neyhart’s first experiment with teaching high school students. Driver Education went from a young professor’s quirky idea to being a ubiquitous high school class in a remarkably short period. This must have come as a surprise to Neyhart, who said that many educators looked down on Driver Education in the early days. But his point that “it is just as important to teach youngsters how to stay alive as it is to be scientists, scholars, engineers or researchers” ultimately prevailed.
Neyhart “retired” in 1961, though his schedule hardly slowed down. Throughout the 1960s, he travelled worldwide, often with over 200 engagements per year. Said Neyhart, “I just can’t sit back when there’s a lot of work to be done and potentially a lot of lives to be saved.”
Neyhart bemoaned upon his retirement: “We have expected too much from vehicles, roadways and police, and entirely too little from our drivers. Millions have been spent on engineering motor cars, billions on building highways – but only pennies, comparatively speaking, on engineering drivers.” Professor Neyhart did his best to alter that balance.
Even into his 80s, Neyhart kept active, and abreast of technological changes in cars and driving. One thing that made Neyhart’s passion so enduring is that he loved both driving and educating others so they could enjoy it too. When he was 85, Neyhart said that driving has been the “pleasure of a lifetime” for him. He’d long moved on from his Graham-Paige, though, and as an octogenarian piloted a 1979 Lincoln. And his own driving record? Over six decades behind the wheel, he’d accumulated just one speeding ticket (while passing another vehicle) and one accident, when he was hit lightly by a delivery truck. At the end of his career, he estimated that he’d taught over 20,000 high school teachers how to teach Driver Education.
Neyhart passed away in 1990 at age 91; however, his legacy is still with us. His original vision of Driver Education is – in many ways – still practiced. Students typically have some kind of classroom (or online) instruction, followed by several hours of in-car training. That training takes place in a dual-control car with other students observing from the back seat, exactly the model that Neyhart pioneered in 1933.
However, some aspects of early Driver Ed programs have vanished. Little mechanical instruction is provided to students now, for instance. While purists may bemoan this loss, it is understandable. Modern vehicles suffer much fewer breakdowns, and require less mechanical knowledge to operate than they did just a few decades ago.
A bigger change is that Driver Education is quickly fading from public schools, which have widely scaled back their programs in recent decades. Ironically, many states now require Driver Education for prospective licensees – and the practice has largely shifted to private companies instead.
Regardless of the provider, Driver Education has become a custom in the United States in which most of us have participated. It’s hard to say just what effect such programs have had on traffic safety, since roads, vehicles and just about everything else have changed dramatically since the 1930s. And with the ubiquity of Driver Education, it’s tough to think of (let alone quantify) what our roads would be like without it. Neyhart himself was aware of that difficulty in assessing his life’s work, and in the 1960s he noted that countless studies have shown the benefit of Driver Education… but no study ever concluded the opposite.
The next time you see a conspicuously-marked car with a student driver behind the wheel, spare a moment to thank Amos Neyhart and his quirky idea to engineer drivers… a concept that proved remarkably enduring.
My high school’s driver training in 1972 was useless. No in-car lessons and few lectures; just reading and quizzes. Most of the curriculum was devoted to watching over-the-top fright films about the dangers of speed.
My experience today leads me to believe that no time is spent on vehicle dynamics, which is unfortunate given the number of top-heavy trucks on the road. I’m also annoyed that all the driver safety remedial courses are still using 1950s data to chide us about our poor habits. Can you imagine the highways if we were all forced to maintain two car lengths per 10mph? And fer chrissakes, it’s a 10 degree curve in the road, you don’t need to use the brakes! (breaks for all you Gen Z people) Plan ahead and adjust speed accordingly. BMW drivers in particular need to learn about that lever on the left side of the wheel that indicates to others where they will go next.
I’m told that many European countries have stricter licensing procedures but the US seems to be counting on autonomous cars to make roads safer.
I got a lot out of our high school’s driver training in 1974. I was lucky and got the school’s “cool” drivers ed instructor — he related well to the students and taught us some pretty interesting stuff. We frequently went up to what essentially was an abandoned industrial park, and learned how to skid, etc. He taught us a lot about vehicle dynamics and the importance of anticipation in daily driving habits. I still use some of the advice learned in that 1/2 credit class.
Students were preassigned in groups of 4 for the driving portion of the course. Later in life, I realized that the drivers ed cohort I was in was something similar to the casting of the movie Breakfast Club. Our group consisted of a big jock (football/wrestling), a “stoner” motorhead, a pretty cheerleader, and a nerd (in the spirit of full disclosure, I was the nerd). But we all got along great — and while we never became close friends, I gained an appreciation for their opinions and ways of life, and at least we became friendly enough to say “hi” to each other in the hallways of our huge school.
Commonsense, your comment about your drivers’ ed cohort very much echoes my experience in 1977 or so. I particularly recall riding with the pretty cheerleader while we took turns operating the steering wheel (from its lower half, therefore out of sight of the instructor) for the stoner…who couldn’t for the life of him figure out which way to turn it in order to get the car to swing into a parallel parking space. It was in our interest to just get him past that task so that we could proceed to get our own turns in the driver’s seat.
Each European country has it’s own rules, but based on my experience they are somewhat more strict than in the US
In Italy for example a prospective driver taking the exam needs to have 6 hours of driving with a certified instructor including on highways and at night; licence for older people lasts less (goes down to 2 years for people over 80).
Yet it’s not enough, because there are plenty people driving who have no idea of what they are doing and represent a danger for themselves and others.
And of course, DUI and reckless driving cannot be fixed by a strict procedure
Here in Virginia, a classroom component of Driver Ed is required in 10th grade. I understand the rationale, but a classroom component seems nearly useless for students who aren’t pursuing their Learner’s Permit at the same time. Many kids take the Classroom component in 10th grade, but don’t get their actual on-road permit for another year or two.
I agree that vehicle dynamics is completely gone from Driver Ed curricula – too bad, because a lot of people can benefit from it.
I too am curious about licensing procedures in other countries; I suspect that many US states are pretty lax in this regard. In my state, they’ve added lots of requirements over the years, but these are mostly bureaucratic hurdles for new drivers (particularly teens) to jump through, but little in the way of useful training.
A fascinating morning read for a non American. I was aware that such a thing existed but knew little about it. Here in the province of British Columbia, we either learned to drive from one of our parents or were sent to a private driving school if you could afford it. My Dad, an excellent driver but demanding taskmaster, taught me to drive. My brother went to driving school in the interests of family harmony…
All we got at school was the occasional screening of decades old films such as “Signal 30” and the like, usually after one of our number has been killed. At the start of our graduation year all of the prospective grads were gathered in the auditorium and lectured on the dangers of drunk driving (“Look around the room. By June one of you will be be dead. They were right, and it happened at least once every year).
The hardest part of the drivers exam in the late ’70s was the dreaded parallel parking test at the end. Once you passed you were issued an unrestricted license and off you went. The results were predictable, and I can think of half a dozen friends and acquaintances who didn’t live to see 21. Today it’s not as easy to get a license, and they are graduated with restrictions for several years. We would have benefited greatly from a well run program of this type, though I can imagine it would not have been fun being the teacher tasked with being the instructor!
I’ve been curious whether high school Driver Ed was ever widely offered in Canada. Neyhart gave many speeches in Canada during the 1950s and ’60s (often sponsored by local of provincial governments), and he advocated for school-taught Driver Ed, but I never came across evidence that it was widely adopted like it was in the US.
When I was in high school in the 1980s, we also were shown decades-old Driver Ed films, and what I find amusing is that last year my daughter and I attended a mandatory parent/child Driver Ed class (required for new teen drivers), and the film shown was from the 1990s. So also decades old. What is it about this films that they can’t be current?
Wow, what an amazing man. The very definition of passion. And a most excellent write up. Thanks! A great way to start my day! I LUV this place 🙂
Thanks!
I thought Driver’s Ed (what we called the pure classroom sessions) and Driver Training (simulator and behind-the-wheel) were actually pretty good. Of course I had already learned everything I needed to know from a half-dozen years of reading Road & Track and lots of car books from the library 😀. The only part that seemed silly were the grainy black and white films and slides of the aftermath of bloody accidents. Maybe they would have been more effective in color. And “Sportsmanlike Driving” … I’d forgotten about that title for the last 50 years or so.
When our kids learned to drive in the late 2000’s, it was gone from public schools. The “classroom” sessions were online and the driving session was in a Honda Civic (same instructor, same car for both kids two years apart) with just the instructor. No cramming into an LTD or Coronet with other kids. I do think the peer learning and especially peer pressure were effective parts of the curriculum.
Thanks Eric for a great morning read!
My Driver Ed experience was also pretty good, though I already had my license by the time I took it. Back then (in Pennsylvania) there was no Driver Ed requirement to get your license, so I got mine two weeks after I turned 16… but there was a hefty insurance discount, so it made sense to take it anyway.
If I remember correctly, our Driver Ed teachers were former high school shop teachers. Our school district eliminated Shop around 1980, but offered the teachers other jobs. They did a good job. My most vivid memory though is that one of my classmates simply couldn’t handle driving, and the teacher wasn’t able to pass her, which was pretty awkward.
Nice to learn the backstory .
I so wanted to take Driver’s Ed but wasn’t allowed, it was the favorite class of those in the cool set who never paid attention and mostly joked smoked and slept through those classes .
I grew up near Boston, Mass. and understand why so man think “Massholes” are the worst drivers, maybe but at least they always try to avoid stopping or bunching up traffic .
The U.S.A. has trillions to give to already rich people and corporations I think some of that $ should be directed to mandatory driver’s training .
-Nate
Thanks for this education. A great example of what one man’s passion can bring about.
He said that the safest drivers are those between 45 and 50 (probably still true).
Actually it’s now the 60-69 year old cohort. It’s not surprising that this changed over time for a number of reasons including having learned late in life, not had driver’s ed, and perhaps most likely they probably drove less distances back then than younger drivers, likely increasing their exposure to traffic accidents per mile driven.
Interesting – I can definitely see that about the 60-69 age cohort now that I think about it.
I have a friend in his mid-70s who shouldn’t be driving. Period. He realized his driving was marginal at best and that he most likely won’t pass the eye exam on his next renewal. Until that time comes, he bought a Tesla with the self driving feature.
And as a now-member of that age cohort, I definitely believe it. As Neyhart may have agreed, so much of driving is based on the driver’s underlying psychology. At 65 and with nearly 50 years behind the wheel, I’ve seen and done enough to pretty much eliminate most of the bad behaviors that (some would say) characterized my earlier driving years. This is likely to be the case with anyone who is even just a little self-aware and able to reflect on the consequences of their actions. Even for slow learners, these experiences and awareness add up over time.
I agree about the later in life thing. My mom didn’t get her license until she was 51, after my parents got divorced in ’76. 5’2″, maybe a buck ten soaking wet, drove a 1968 LTD Country Squire. That had to seem like a school bus to her. But she came of age in the ’40s so who knows. 🙂
A great piece, Eric! I grew up in a small town (Bishop, California, population 3,500), but we had a robust driver training program during my high school years. I took the class in the fall of 1971. We had three Driver’s Ed teachers, and every year three new vehicles from local dealers. I learned to drive in a 1972 Pontiac Catalina sedan with a 455-cubic inch V8. And being in a rural area, we had wide-open roads on which to learn, as well as a reasonably busy downtown to navigate and learn parking. Invaluable experience.
Not a lot of brands sold in Bishop anymore, and none domestic. I’m guessing the Pontiac came from Perry Motors, now Honda and Toyota only. I bet it would have been fun to open up that 455 Catalina going up the grade towards Mammoth!
dman—Yeah, that Catalina had no issues with climbing Sherwin Grade. And yes, it was from Perry Motors. At the time, you could buy most brands apart from the high-end stuff in Bishop.
Beyond that, Jeep and International were at Economy Motors, Luther Motors had Dodge and Chrysler-Plymouth, Bishop Volkswagen sold the early Audis, Oyler-Wiley Motors had Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Nissan and Eastern Sierra Motors was Ford, Lincoln-Mercury and Mazda.
I think Honda didn’t arrive until 1976, when the new Accord made Perry Motors add it to the Pontiac-Buick-GMC and Toyota lineups. Until then you had to go to either Lancaster or Carson City. If you wanted the luxury and sport imports, it was either Bill Harrah’s Modern Classic Motors in Reno or down to L.A.
I took drivers Ed in 1975. Our classroom stuff was mostly movies or film strips and taught by the “health” teacher. The driving was a few weeks in summer when we alternated days between actual cars and simulators. This was a centralized program for all of Fort Wayne Community Schools. My group was in a 75 Mercury Marquis, very long and wide!
My kids went to the private school, and followed the program I had, but on a smaller scale (and without simulators). Oddly, big public schools in my area were leaving parents/kids on their own to get the training.
Great piece!
Good job Eric, interesting and educational! (or is it educative?)
Got my driver’s license in the summer of 1984, at the age of 18 (minimum age, back then). A ‘theory’ part and a ‘practice’ part, the lessons were given by private driving schools (still the case). Some schools had only one car, others had a serious fleet. Mine was a VW Golf Mk1 diesel with a four-speed manual, utterly easy to drive. Driving lessons and passing the test in a car with an automatic? Then you were not allowed to drive a car with a manual.
When you want to renew your driver’s license once you’re 75 years old or older, a medical check-up by an independent doctor -so not by your own general practitioner- is legally required. Everything OK? Then your renewed license is valid for another five years. After that, medical check-up again, and so on.
Here in the US, most states offer driver’s licenses at 16, with only one state (New Jersey) being 17. I think 16 is a good age – kind of hits the sweet spot for learning things, in my opinion.
Rules & requirements vary greatly between states. My niece ran into a tough situation because she got her license in California, but her family moved to Massachusetts shortly afterwards. Massachusetts didn’t honor her California license because drivers under 18 there need to be approved by a *Massachusetts* driver ed instructor. She ended up just driving on her old California license for a year until she turned 18 (when she could get a Massachusetts license free and clear as an adult)… rather than going through Driver Ed a second time.
A few states have some requirements for older drivers (like eye tests or road sign tests), but I’m not aware of anywhere here that requires a full medical checkup.
Interesting to hear how various places do things.
You don’t have to be 18 any longer these days to start with the education, yet the situation during my high school era was as follows: 16 for riding 50 cc mopeds (Zündapp, Kreidler, Yamaha, Honda, etc.) and taking car driving lessons ASAP after you turned 18 (in my case, the day after my 18th birthday). Note that these are the official/formal minimum ages.
Once you’ve passed the test and got the official piece of paper, you were free to drive any car, van, or light truck up to 3,500 kg GVWR without guidance/supervision.
I was also insistent on getting my license as soon as possible.
My dad taught me the basics in parking lots when I was 15, so when I turned 16, I could actually drive acceptably. I asked my dad if I could wake him up at midnight on my 16th birthday, so I could go driving on real roads as early as possible. To my surprise he said OK… so that’s what we did. I still remember the thrill of driving (for real) the first time, and even remember the route we took around the neighborhood.
Excellent article, Eric! I hadn’t known about Neyhart, but I definitely recognize his text book. I do believe that this (whatever the current edition was) was the text in my high school drivers’ ed course.
I loved drivers’ ed. I wrote in some detail about my experiences in my COAL some while back, but one of my main points was that even in 1977, high school had increasingly become almost entirely populated by classes where the only things you did were in your head. Drivers’ ed though was hands-on, experiential, learning. Plus, it had a clear goal (getting your license) that was more immediately satisfying than adding points to your GPA, qualifying for honor society, or eventually getting into the right college.
Judging from my own kids’ experience with a private driver training course (because drivers ed is no longer offered in public schools in my state), I was lucky to be able to take drivers’ ed as a semester-long high school course. The duration allowed for a lot of time behind the wheel (albeit much on the driving range behind the school) which was not only educational but fun. Frankly, I’m not sure that modern kids really learn anything in the current style of courses. I know that I certainly took them out for much more time to practice than was ever part of the course. My own parents, o t o h, barely took me out at all…they assumed that the school would teach me. And I guess that happened. Kinda.
Two other random things…You mention that Neyhart helped design truck driver training courses. That makes me wonder if learning to drive a large truck – prior to Neyhart – was as haphazard an arrangement as learning to drive a car was before Neyhart. Yikes.
Second, you have one mention of “dual control” (i.e., dual steering wheel) driver training cars. I think I have only seen maybe one of those…and they had definitely been phased out by the time I was trained in the late 1970s. I’d love to read more about the thinking behind how drivers’ ed cars were designed. I’ve heard people talk about this, but it would be great to read about it. What exactly was the thinking behind moving from 2 wheels, to just 2 brake pedals, to what seems to be popular now…no dual controls at all? My kids just rode around in a Toyota Corolla with driver school graphics…and an instructor who (they claimed) just vaped and randomly yelled at them (for this I paid about $2,000 a kid).
Thanks! It’s interesting that your Driver Ed car – and your kids’ car – didn’t have dual controls of any kind. Mine did in the late 1980s (dual brake pedals), as did my daughter’s Driver Ed car this year. So it certainly hasn’t been phased out… but maybe it’s now more of a regional thing?
In my reply to Dman above, I wrote that one girl in my Driver Ed cohort just couldn’t handle driving. I recall one time, while she was driving on a small residential road, she panicked when approaching a T intersection and didn’t know what to do. She actually wasn’t going to stop, and the Instructor hit the dual control brake and slowed the car down. (Yes… terrifying to experience from the backseat)
My daughter mentioned that her Driver Ed instructor has used his Brake Control a few times, usually to slow student drivers down on curves, or even when parking in parking spaces.
Most of the early Dual Control cars, like the AAA Pontiac, just had extra pedals, not steering wheels. But I did come across some examples of dual steering wheel cars, like the one below. Definitely an oddity.
Just to clarify, MY drivers’ ed car did have the secondary brake pedal…which Mr. Freeman or Mr. Papini (school football coach and school assistant football coach, the only assignments these guys had besides Drivers’ Ed Instructors) would gleefully threaten to employ if you “got out of line”.
This, btw, was an excellent introduction to the fact that teachers were just like any other folk…and Mr. Freeman and Mr. Papini didn’t possess any more or less magic than your average Joe. Except I guess they could fail you. And that’s why we students attempted (quite successfully) to stay at least one step ahead of them.
A bit late, but thank you for this informative look back. Neyhart certainly was the right person at the right time. In Canada I took a private course, always found it curious that films showed driver ed happening in high school. Perhaps today we need a Neyhart to revolutionize software training. At my employer any new application or change is addressed by watching a recording of a Finnish lady reading a Power Point. At the end I’m always tempted to ask “That was an interesting overview, when is the actual training?” Imagine starting drivers ed with a Power Point on how to customize the screen menus and never getting any time behind the wheel?
I enjoyed the read and it brought back youthful fun memories. I took my high school drivers ed course in NC, summer of 1966 at age 15. If you didn’t complete a drivers ed class you couldn’t apply for a drivers license until age 18. Back then I didn’t know of anyone in my very large high school class that waited until age 18! We had extensive in class instruction, even taking a mock written test for a drivers license. Once completing the course you could apply for a learners permit at age 15 (daytime hours with an adult licensed driver). If I recall we had so many students taking the course it ran twice during summer months, taught by our high school teachers. We had a small fleet of new 1966 Pontiac Catalina four-door sedans, all white with blue interiors. If I recall we had 4-5 with automatics and two with column shift. I didn’t have a problem with clutching as Dad had let me drive in circles around our block in my brothers MG while he was out of state at university his Freshman year and not allowed to have a car on campus. Lets keep that private as I still don’t think my older brother knows I drove his car.
Many things I learned in drivers ed stick with me today. I know how to line up to parallel park, I always come to a complete stop at stop signs (no rolling stops ever), even with rearview mirrors correctly adjusted I still turn my head to look left or right before changing lanes, and I always use my turn signals even when the street is empty. In all my decades of driving I have only received two traffic violations: once in the early 1970s Miami I made and incorrect U-turn and swear I did not see the no U-turn sign; again about eight years ago in Ottawa, Ontario I received a red light violation as a traffic cam caught me passing the red light 0.01 seconds after the light changed. OK, they got me for 1/10th of a second, pay the fine via a website, move on. But I was a little ticked because I was in a 60 kpm zone (37 mph) and I timed that there was only a 3-second delay between amber and red. Money grab and that intersection delay between amber and red later changed. I am not saying I am an excellent driver as I tend to drive fast, just lucky only getting warning tickets. Been in my share of wrecks, never charged, mostly hit by distracted drivers, or drunk drivers, or a combination of both.
Last comment: Over the decades I have moved from state-to-state and country-to country. I renewed my license each move, never had to be tested since 1967. My current license is up for renewal in 2030. I have test anxiety.
My high school Driver Ed class was also perpetually full. I remember being glad to secure a spot when I did, rather than have to wait for the summer.
Sometime before I got my license, Pennsylvania removed parallel parking from the driver’s test, so I never really learned how to do it. Eventually I taught myself and became relatively proficient, but I don’t do it much any longer, so I have once again gotten rusty with it.
My parents live in an independent living facility, and mom told me this year that they had a parallel parking contest there. She said a lot of residents were eager to show off their skills that they hadn’t used in a long time.
Wonderful and informative article on Neyhart. I recognize his methods in the Driver’s Ed I took in about 1961.
In my Vancouver Island high school, there was no driver’s education whatsoever. Where I grew up, there was not public transportation, so bicycle and car was how we got around. I was in the licencing office on my sixteenth birthday. My father, who was a terrible driver, insisted on teaching me how to drive. When I mentioned I wanted to go to a driver’s school, he was livid, claiming it was a waste money (of course, his three packs of smokes a day was not a waste). He then proceed to teach me all his bad habits. Not surprisingly, I failed the driver’s test.
I insisted on going for driving lessons. I used my own money, made from working on the local farms. It was then I realised how bad a driver dad was. I took like ten lessons and took the test again. This time I passed. I still use the knowledge I learned from those lessons.
Fabulous information! Thank you. I was eighteen, living at home in Manhattan, and we had no car. I went to a driving school, failed the test twice and shelved the project because I needed my money for my higher education. In 1966, three weeks before my twenty-third birthday, my new Dodge was delivered to my home. Remember? I had no driver’s license! My father’s childhood friend, Armen, who lived in the D.C. area, which is where I was at this time of my life, took me out several times. I became a licensed Maryland driver. I decided to drive to Manhattan from Silver Spring, MD to visit my father. My dread was to drive on Interstates. I had learned in 1960 on Manhattan’s streets. When I arrived in Manhattan, I was perfectly fine. Since that time, I have driven well over a million miles. At 82, I am still comfortable driving.
in western NY state in a small town in the 60s the driver ed car was a loaner from the local Ford dealer, usually a 4 door sedan. In the summer of 1963 a fellow student driver was supposed to do a three point turn but hit the gas instead of the brake. Before the instructor could react the car hit a section of sidewalk that was about 8 inches above the village street shoulder and after lurching up and onto the sidewalk it was rocking with all four wheels hanging. Everyone else in the car was told to climb down carefully and walk home. Don’t know if that student passed.
I took driver’s ed at my public school in the summer of 1969 before I started senior year. I already had my license but figured I’d glean more knowledge from the course, and there likely was an insurance discount as well. Like so many others here have mentioned, my instructor was a phys ed teacher and coach. I had the standard course, with 30 hours of classroom instruction and 6 hours of driving experience. Our textbook was a Scott Foresman publication called “Drive Right.”
I thought the lessons were very informative, and I got a good sampling of driving on local roads. Our car was a new 1969 Dodge Coronet sedan, with an automatic and likely the 318 V8, courtesy of the local dealer. It did have the extra brake pedal on the passenger side.
Great article, Eric.
Driver’s ed was not offered in the Anchorage, Alaska school district where I grew up. Nor was it required for a driver’s license. But I wanted some wheel time and the insurance discount so I asked for a private course for Christmas. I must have been a good boy because I did receive what I asked for.
There was no classroom time that I recall, but quite a bit of wheel time in a ’71 Nova with a six cylinder and full dual controls. The instructor even had a second rear view mirror stuck on the windshield for his use. He would pick me up at home early early in the morning, and drop me at school after the lesson. And some lessons were the opposite. It was winter so I got lot’s of snow driving experience, which was a plus. I had been driving with a learner’s permit for about a year and a half at that time, so I did not learn much new, but rather refined what I knew and gained many driving tips. Overall it was very beneficial.
The CC effect strikes again. I read this while taking a break from editing some video from a car show I attended last Fall. The last clip I looked at was a 1929 Graham Paige.
An interesting article. I had never thought about when driver training started or how it developed.
I got my licence in 1966 when I turned 16. None of the high schools in my area (Toronto) offered driver ed, but I took a course through CAA (Canadian version of AAA). I think it was called Pro Drivers, but it sounds similar to the high school courses. It included a discount on car insurance, which was important. There was some classroom sessions and in-car training was provided by a commercial driving school. As far as I can remember the car did not have a second brake pedal. There were 3 students per car and we rotated to each get a turn. Our car was a 1966 Rambler Classic.
It was certainly different in my parents era. They both got their licences at age 16, which would have been in 1930 and 1931. Neither of my grandmothers drove, and in my dad’s case his father had died the year before, so my dad and his older sister were the only drivers in the household. For my mother, her older brother could drive, but he was away at university, so it was useful for her to have a licence.
At that time, the rules in Ontario were odd. There were only 2 types of licences, a “chauffeur’s” licence and an “operator’s” licence. If you got paid for driving, you needed a chauffeur’s licence, otherwise an operators licence was enough. The chauffeur’s licence was implemented in 1909, but the operator’s was only created in 1927. Until then anyone could drive a private vehicle without a licence. This resulted in an odd situation in 1930 when my parents got their licences. You could get a chauffeur’s licence at 16, but the age for the operator’s licence was 18. Of course both my parents went for the chauffeurs at age 16 rather than waiting 2 years. My mom said it was a harder test but I did not find any details to confirm that.