Minnesota lawmakers introduced a bill this month that would require new drivers under the age of 21 to take driver’s ed in a classroom, in addition to physical road tests, to get their licenses. If passed, the North Star State would be the fifth with such a restriction, joining Maryland and Texas, as well as Ohio and Washington, which passed similar laws just last year.
Currently in Minnesota, only new drivers under 18 are required to attend 30 hours of driver’s ed before getting a license. But a University of Nebraska-Lincoln study cited by the Minnesota Star Tribune suggests that drivers between 18 and 20 who receive classroom training are 75% less likely to get a ticket within their first two years on the road. Meanwhile, data from the Washington State Department of Licensing found that the likelihood of injuries and fatal crashes are 80% higher for young drivers in that same age group who don’t go through a driver’s ed program. For what it’s worth, that risk only dropped to 70% for drivers aged 21-24.
House Representative Andrew Myers, who co-chairs Minnesota’s Transportation Finance and Policy Committee, was the lead author of the proposal, saying that it’s intended “to better protect drivers, passengers, road workers, law enforcement, pedestrians, and everyone who uses our roadways.”
Part of the reason that young drivers don’t attend classroom training is that they can’t afford it. When Washington passed its version of this bill, it also included a voucher program, an option to take classes online, and an option to largely condense physical training into a single day to ease access. Myers’ bill, HF3988, adds the new stipulation for drivers under 21 without including provisions to address the affordability question, though the lawmaker said he is “cognizant” of such concerns, according to the Tribune.
In Minnesota, drivers under 18 must also complete six hours of training behind the wheel and 50 hours of practice under the supervision of a licensed driver aged 21 or older, beyond the driver’s ed component. As someone who grew up in New Jersey and benefited from high school-run driver’s ed, the idea of being similarly young but without that element of classroom learning seems as though it would’ve made my first few years on the road considerably harder.
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