Wednesday, April 03, 2019

If You're On Woodward Today, Watch Out, New Teenage Driver!

Yes, Abby is taking her first in-car driving lesson as we speak.

Michigan now has a graduated licensing system so for her to be allowed to learn to drive, she first needs to take this class and get her =Level 1 permit, then we can start taking her driving.

So far the classroom portion has been described as varying between deathly boring and hellishly boring.

In short the theory instructor is really lacking any effort, phoning it in and mainly playing AAA videos and repeating the info contained in them.

The workbook is pretty close to useless. For example the dashboard it has you identify gauges on depicts gauges that aren't on most cars these days including an ammeter gauge, a battery gauge, and a manifold pressure gauge for a turbo - seriously.

Why is the classroom portion of driving instruction so consistently deathly boring?

You'd think they'd have improved the delivery of the material and the material itself by now. After all driving is a rather important part of people's lives and learning to do so is important. The Level 1 segment requires 24 hours of in class instruction, so there's unfortunately a lot of time for boredom as they really seem to no be using the time effectively.

Since Monday they've learned about wearing seat belts and being sure to check all around your car for obstacles before getting in and adjusting the seat and mirrors. This should take 20 minutes, not the six hours so far.

They should be able to make an engaging and instructive curriculum but for whatever reason, they dnn't. She's learning more by self-studying the What Every Driver Must Know state handbook than anything in class.

Well, 6 hours of in-car instruction and 4 hours of in-car observation should prove to be instructive.

3 comments:

Chuck Pergiel said...

That's the bureaucracy for you. Somebody should take them to task for their incompetence, but who wants to waste their energy on a futile endeavor?

pigpen51 said...

I never did understand why they changed it from the way it used to be. I turned 16 and took my drivers training and driving in 2 weeks. Then went and took my test and had my learners permit. In 30 days I had my license. At least, I think that is how it was. I was born in 1960, so it has been a long time ago. But it was pretty much that simple.
I think that the insurance companies wanted it changed, to make it "safer". But it really is not safer, the way they are doing it now.

Chuck Pergiel said...

I'm wondering if maybe they were thinking they needed a process to weed out people who shouldn't be driving, but being as politicians were involved, that good idea got turned into a rolling ball of goo. I mean, you're not allowed to tell someone they are not smart enough to drive, are you? But maybe that's not really the problem. Maybe it's the people who let their attention wander, or let their emotions gain the upper hand, and we don't really have a good way to screen for that, do we? In any case, I'm amazed we don't have more serious accidents than we do.