The District does not require beginners to complete driver's education for its graduated licensing.
Williams and others say the bottom line in learning to drive is for teenagers to spend more time practicing with an adult in the car -- and that often points to the need for more parental involvement.
During her final driving lesson, Sarah Oluich, 16, checks her rearview mirror as instructor Jim Fraser watches traffic on Route 40 in Frederick. She says she's practiced driving with her mother just once. "She's too scared," Oluich says.
(Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
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Driver's Ed Requirements
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"Who has a greater stake in seeing a 16-year-old driver turn 18 or 21 or 25 or 30?" asked Julie Rochman, spokeswoman for the Washington-based American Insurance Association. "Someone you've hired to teach your kid to drive, or you?"
'Crash-Proof' Drivers
On a recent afternoon, Sarah Oluich, 16, went over a point-by-point car inspection in the Allegany Driving School parking lot in Frederick. Ponytail bobbing, she wrapped her slender fingers around the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip and turned to her instructor, Jim Fraser.
"How much gas do you have?" Fraser asked.
"Half full."
"Is the car warmed up?"
"I don't know."
"What instrument do you look at?"
"I don't remember."
Oluich lurched onto the streets of Frederick with only about two hours of training to go before she completed her course. Whenever she oversteered on turns -- almost hitting a utility pole and shrubbery at one point -- Fraser reached over, gripped the wheel and gently guided her back.
Had she been practicing with her mother, Fraser asked. "She's only taken me once so far," Oluich replied. "She's too scared."
Fraser said any fault rests not with driver's education programs, whether private or through public schools. A good way to improve Maryland's licensing program, he said, would be to raise the minimum age for a learner's permit from 15 years 9 months to age 16 and require teenagers to hold the learner's permit for a full year. "I think you'd see results," he said. "You'd enhance the learning process."
In Virginia, a resident must be at least 15 1/2 to obtain a learner's permit. The minimum age for a provisional license in the District is 16 1/2 years.
