Episode 25: Driver Education – Helping Parents Navigate New Teen Drivers

Anthony Godfrey:
Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Today, we hit the road with an episode we hope will help parents navigate all the nervousness and stress that may come with new drivers. Riverton High School Driver Ed Instructor, Steve Galley invited us along inside the car for a driving lesson with two students. What we learned can help keep everyone students and adults alike safer on the road. We are here at the North parking lot of Riverton High School with Mr. Steve Galley. Steve, introduce yourself a little bit to the listeners of the Supercast. You've worn a lot of hats in Jordan District.

Steve:
I am in my 21st year here at Riverton High, and I've also spent five years at West Jordan High and that's where I got started in Driver Ed. And I've done a lot of coaching as well. And I've been the Department Chair of Driver Ed here at Riverton High, since we opened the school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Are there some misperceptions on the part of students and even parents?

Steve:
I think one is sometimes parents think is that they will learn everything about driving in the Driver Education Course, and that we will teach them everything about driving in three hours in the car.

Anthony Godfrey:
So three hours in the car, is that how long the driving time is offering  on the range?

Steve:
Yeah, that's the road time. And then they have range time.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's less than I remembered. It seemed like a lot longer than that at the time.

Steve:
You may have been struggling behind the wheel at that time.

Anthony Godfrey:
That is absolutely true. I continue to struggle.

Steve:
We don't get very much time with them. And so it's critical that parents help them get in their practice time, the 40 hours that they need to do with the students. It's critical that there's a connection between teacher, parents and students so the things they're learning in class are being practiced and worked on with the parents. And when that happens, then we see we see a huge difference when we get in the car with him.

Anthony Godfrey:
If the student wants to start driving and get their license on their 16th birthday, at what age should they start driving?

Steve:
We encourage parents to wait a couple months after their 15th birthday to get their permit. A lot of students are anxious. They get it on the 15th birthday, but it will expire one year from when they get it. Many students turn 16 before the end of the quarter. And so they end up having to pay another $19 and renew their permit. So we encourage them to wait a couple of months. But I think if the student is eager and wants to practice, I like them getting their permit a few months after their 15th birthday so they can start experimenting and practicing. It's not perfect because obviously, you would want them to learn some things from the teacher and from the class that they don't get. We're hoping that parents are not forming a lot of bad habits but that they're becoming more comfortable behind the wheel. You notice a difference with the ones that have had a good number of hours before they get to the class.

Anthony Godfrey:
What advice do you have for parents on being patient with their child in the car?

Steve:
This happens a lot. It's interesting. When you ask students, do you have a freakout parent? They just start chattering and my mom did this and my dad did that. And I ask them who do you like to drive with? I like to drive with my dad because he's calmer. And some say, Oh no, I don't want to drive with my dad. He just yells the whole time. So there's two things we emphasize. One is talking and planning the drive as much as possible. That can't always happen because there are spontaneous drives, but if they can talk about, these are some things that we've learned in class. These are some things that I need to practice. These are things that are going to be on the road test and you can go into the drive with a little bit of a plan. Students tell me the stress level will drop considerably.

And then the other thing is we use a strategy that's called commentary driving. I've taught this for almost 15 years. I really started to emphasize it the last few years. It simply is the student, talking in conversational tone about what they are seeing, what they're predicting, what they're planning on doing. They're going through the whole driving task mentally, but they're talking out loud. This does a couple of really good things. It forces the student to focus on the concepts that they've been learning. They get to repeat terms. They get to emphasize things that their parents may not be talking to them about, but the teacher wants them to do right. And then, the absolute awesome byproduct of commentary driving is that it usually lowers the stress level of the parent, because instead of trying to read the student's mind and guess what they think is going on, they can hear what the student is thinking. And instead of like, if they see the little girl on the bike, instead of arguing about the little girl on the bike, Hey, watch out for the little girl on the bike and you're like, I saw the little girl on the bike  and then you're arguing about that. It's when she, or he says, I see the little girl on the bike. Okay?

Stress level goes down, I'm approaching a stop sign. I'm going to put on the brakes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yes. So they're really narrating their own driving.

Steve:
Yeah. It's just commentary, driving. It's narration. I know in our classes, we show examples of it. We show videos of it. When we're with students, I don't do as much of it, mainly because we're more experienced, it's easier for us. We're in a marked car. We have shakes. We've had thousands of hours of this so we're really used to it, but parents you're in their car. They don't do this all the time. They may be arguing with their son about cleaning his room. I never have to have that argument with them. We  just focus on driving.

Anthony Godfrey:
There's no baggage you bring to the drive.

Steve:
If a student is really struggling with something, for example, intersections, they're hesitant, they're making wrong decisions. I'm having to intervene and prevent possible crashes. Then I'll have a use commentary driving and within seconds, and parents can do this too, within seconds you will be able to identify what they are not doing, because you'll know what they're thinking. And then you have a better chance of fixing it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I would imagine that if you are along for the ride on a lot of commentary driving, you start to hear your own voice in your head as you're driving.

Steve:
Yes, it can get a little annoying. I've had parents tell me, it's okay, she's really doing the commentary driving. It's been great.

Anthony Godfrey:
But do we have to do it for an entire hour?

Steve:
Probably not.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what are some of the things that students struggle with the most?

Steve:
I would say spend time with your parallel parking, first of all,  because I think that's a skill that I've not developed. Most people don't want to develop that. And it's funny, you mentioned that. I personally think it's the least important thing on the road test, but it's the one thing that's talked about and feared so much. In fact, I just read a report this past week. Nevada has dropped parallel parking from their State road test because you don't find very much of it. In downtown areas, I guess, but people don't like to do it. People are more willing to actually drive around the block for a half hour.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'd rather walk six blocks in the rain than parallel park downtown. But I will tell you, there's one thing that I've really noticed last few years. I think driving is more challenging. There's a lot more at stake. It is obviously very dangerous, but we have a lot of students who are just absolutely terrified of going on the freeway.

Steve:
Yeah. we have a lot of parents who are equally terrified to be a passenger on the freeway with their son or daughter driving. So we work on strategies to help them to overcome that fear. I think if you have teachers that are really explaining the road test and we have a really high pass rate here at Riverton, but we also don't test any students. The idea is success and so if they need to work on things, we will slow it down a little bit so they can get better. But I don't think we have so many students that after the fact say, I don't know I was getting so worked up about that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Yeah. Do you find a lot of students wait to get their drivers license more than in the past or not?

Steve:
Not necessarily. A nationwide trend since about 2012 is there are fewer, and this is in every state, fewer students getting their licenses. Some just don't take Driver's Ed. Many take the classroom phase, but don't actually finish all of the driving. And the major studies that are linked have looked at this research. They've linked it to the cell phone, the smartphone. We used to go knock on our friend's door to play. We used to in high school, we would put $5 of gas drive and you'd go to your friends. And of course they still do that stuff, but they have instant connection to not only their friends, but the world on their phone and driving is scary and driving can be. And also, it can be expensive for fuel, car insurance, everything. So not as many students want driver licenses.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's interesting. So let's say someone is listening to the Supercast right now, driving in their car. What mistakes are they probably making if they're listening right now? Talk them through it, what they need to be thinking about, what they're not thinking about.

Steve:
Well, they actually could be distracted by the Supercast.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, you know, it's very engaging content.

Steve:
Yeah. It is audio, so that is better. But distraction is a huge thing. Put your phone down. There's obviously the people that do some major violations of the law, but here's something that you would say, I'm not going to go to jail for this. I'm not a bad person, but you probably should make a complete stop. I see a lot is violating on a right turn on red, which is illegal, unless it's posted that you can't. But you're supposed to stop first. Most people treat it like a green light rather than a red light. Is your seatbelt on right now?

I would ask you, is your seatbelt on? And if it's not on, I've got a question for you. If you're not going to wear it for you, will you wear it for the people that you love? Will you put that seatbelt on?

Anthony Godfrey:
Great, great. And speeding?

Steve:
Speeding, speeding is number one. There's a lot of five over, nine over, my friend's a cop. He said, you can go seven. I mean, you hear all these stories and speed is the number one risk factor in all crashes. It's the most common risk factor that you were going to have.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Do you have any horror stories? Are there some crazy things that have happened out on the road that just kind of surprised you?

Steve:
Most of the really crazy stories are actually not driving related. I haven't been coached, I have an upset stomach, but they usually say it a different way.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Gotcha.

Steve:
Yeah. They're usually things like that, as far as actual driving stuff. When I first got into Driver's Ed, I thought every day was going to be a brush with death. I thought, the kids are just going to be up on people's lawns. It really is pretty tame. We're in a really controlled environment. Our biggest surprises, at least for me, my biggest surprises rarely come from the students. They usually come from other drivers and they are usually adult drivers.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it's not that the students are driving poorly. It's that when you're on the road so much, you see some terrible behavior from it.

Steve:
Yeah. And that's their biggest challenge. One reason why they get in a lot of crashes is an experienced driver is able to react to those things because they've been around it longer, whereas a student may not be doing anything wrong or making a minor mistake, but they are not able to predict and react to what is happening to them. And so then they don't avoid the crash or they panic and do something that contributes to the crash. So that's what I mean. That's why all the practice hours are so critical. They can't get enough practice.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Oh, wow. I'd never thought of it that way, that it would be the adults reacting to the bad behavior of adults and the mistakes of adults around them that's the difficult part. What do you like most about teaching Driver Education?

Steve:
What is really awesome is that it's different from being in the class with 30 to 40 kids. You're in the car with two or three kids and you're stuck together for two plus hours. Right? You get to know the kids better. I enjoy being with kids and talking to them. And then there's just the real rewarding aspect that what you're doing can be a life and death thing. This is a practical skill that they're going to use probably almost every day of their life. And so there's some personal pride that I want them to be confident. I want them to be skilled. I want them to be safe and we do the best we can with the limited time that we get.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. I was always envious when I worked at the high school level of the Driver Education teachers, because you got to know so many kids when you had them only for a quarter, and you got to know them as sophomores, so then you know them the whole time. You're there, you got to know so much of the student population. I think that's a real advantage. It is awesome. Any advice for when people are driving along and they see a Driver Ed car? What should they do? Any advice there?

Speaker 2:
Be patient keep a good distance. One of our most frustrating things is when we're tailgated, the teacher may actually be giving that student a, an official road test, but on a road test, if there's no danger of, you know, a crash or anything, the teacher may is not going to say anything there. Right? Cause the student has to make the decision. The teacher will jump in. If there's some real danger,

Anthony Godfrey:
It's been a long time since I was involved with Driver Education. But when I worked with the high schools, I learned that there is extra equipment installed in the car. So when you're riding with the student, you have your own break on your side. How frequently do you end up using that?

Steve:
Way, way less than you would ever expect? Not that often at all.

Anthony Godfrey:
Riding with my mom, she thinks there's a phantom break there and she would stomp the bottom of the floor of the car, thinking that I wasn't stopping fast enough. So you have the actual break.

Steve:
I do that in non-Driver Ed cars when I'm in the passengers. It's just natural because we just rest our foot so you're ready to go.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, hey, let's hop in the car.

Steve:
Okay.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks to Driver Ed instructor, Steve Galley for sharing some important, safe driving tips for teen drivers, and for those of us who have been behind the wheel for decades.

Anthony Godfrey:
Up next, we'll talk to Maddie and Jane, two Driver Ed students who are learning to be safe and responsible young drivers, thanks to their instructor, Mr. Galley.

Break:
Do you want to know what's going on in Jordan School District? Maybe see your child or a friend featured in a school story? Check out our website at http://jordandistrict.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at Jordan District. Let's connect today. We are here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Do you name these cars, Mr. Galley?

Steve:
No, we don't name them. We're in car #71955.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay. Oh ladies, tell us your names.

Maddie:
Maddie and Jane.

Anthony Godfrey:
Maddie and Jane. Jane's at the wheel. Jane. How much driving have you done?

Jane:
Oh, you're in safe hands. Don't worry.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm not worried at all. I'm quite excited actually. So what do you guys think about getting your driver license? Are you pretty excited?

Maddie:
I actually already got mine and it's way fun.

Anthony Godfrey:
Is there a new sense of independence?

Maddie:
Oh yeah, for sure. It's kind of overwhelming, but I like it. Okay. Jane, where are you going to take us?

Jane:
Well, that's Mr. Galley's decision.

Anthony Godfrey:
Mr. Galley tells you which way to go? Have you done the commentary driving we were talking about?

Jane:
Not in this car, but with my parents, yes I did.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what do you think, does that help you think through the driving?

Jane:
Yeah, a lot. It really helps actually.

Anthony Godfrey:
So when will you be 16? When will you be eligible to get your license?

Jane:
Next Wednesday.

Anthony Godfrey:
Next Wednesday. Are you prepared to get it on your birthday?

Jane:
I hope so. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. When we're done, she's going to be taking her test today.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, wow. Dynamite! Well, thanks for waiting. You guys. I enjoyed talking to Mr. Galley so much. So, all right, I'm ready.

Steve:
Okay, Jane, let's go left. We're going to go out of the parking lot. We're going to go actually drive. She's doing great. So far. We got out of the parking lot. Well, Jane's focused, but relaxed. Jane, tell me what you see. What's happening in front of us.

Jane:
A lot of kids on the sidewalk.

Steve:
What else is gonna see to your right Jane? Do you see those two lights? We've got to be under 20 when we hit these lights. Not under 20. There we go. We're now under 20, stale green light, that was stale. Four seconds left on the clock.

Anthony Godfrey:
Did you just call it a stale green lights?

Steve:
A light has been green a long time. Let's see if Maddie knows the clues. What are some of the clues to know if a green light is fresh or stale?

Maddie:
You look at the crosswalk signs and see how much time is left on them.

steve:
And what if we approached a green light and you saw a white pedestrian signal, that's fresh. That is a fresh green light. So this helps them to make a better quicker intersection decisions. If you know the light is fresh and you're within seven seconds or so, then you're going to be going through that light. So now you can start focusing on other things. If it's a stale green light then depending on how far away we are, we're looking for what we call the point of no return, which we use the second arrow or the end of the left turn lane line, whichever one is closest to the intersection. Instead of being surprised by yellow, instead of reacting late, instead of panicking, we are trying to teach them to prepare for that in advance,

Jane:
The light just turned green so it was fresh. And so I can go straight through the light and then blind spot check and speed up.

Steve:
Yes, we work on actually using our turn signals. Do you think this is good following distance? Explain this.

Jane:
It should be a two second gap.

Steve:
So how you check?

Jane:
You pick a landmark like a light post or a pole, and when the car in front of you passes that object, you start counting and it should be two seconds away.

Steve:
So how far away from this suburban are we?

Jane:
For about five seconds guaranteed. I'm going to be paying better attention to my driving after that.

Steve:
What are you doing right here Jane?

Jane:
Load is excellent. Habit 14 is when you come to a stop behind a car, be far away enough that you can see the back of their tires.

Steve:
Excellent.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I don't do that. That's good. You're supposed to see the back of their tires, Jane, is that right?

Jane:
Yes. That makes sure you have plenty of space in case something comes up.

Steve:
You can react last track check and make your turn into the first corresponding lane. Excellent, great speed. Limit 35 car pulling out right in front and a school zone.

Jane:
Yeah.

Steve:
Okay. So earlier when we talked about adults doing wrong things, the driver that just pulled out should have never pulled out right there. And it did surprise Jane a little bit.

Jane:
Yeah. I did see them pull through.

Anthony Godfrey:
What do you like most about driving?

Jane:
Just like the freedom, I guess.

Anthony Godfrey:
Did you drive with your parents?

Jane:
Yeah, before I got my license.

Anthony Godfrey:
How much driving did you do with them?

Jane:
Definitely more than 40 hours.

Anthony Godfrey:
I have to narrate a little bit here that Jane did an amazing three point turn. The thing that you always worry about when I'm making a 3 point turn is that it becomes a six point turn and she did great. There was a big brick mailbox right in front of her. She just eased right up to it, knew just how close to get. Nailed it.

Jane:
Thank you very much.

Anthony Godfrey:
No, the maneuver didn't nail the mailbox. Completed a well executed three point turn.

Steve
There was one maneuver that Dr. Godfrey said was his favorite to our right. Do you see the one to our right here?

Jane:
The blind spot or the handshake?

Steve:
No, this maneuver here.

Jane:
Oh, the parallel parking. Yeah.

Steve:
He loves it.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love it?

Steve:
He constantly working on it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yes. I'm refining my skills always.

Steve:
Do you want to practice it now?

Anthony Godfrey:
It might be kind of funny. Let's practice it. Let's try it.

Steve:
So let's get set up for it properly. Let's do a straight line backing so we can approach while she gets ready. I think parallel parking is the least important maneuver. And this is what I would say to Jane. I would much rather that she is an All-American intersection, a decision-maker driver than to be the world's best parallel parker.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think that's good advice going into this. By the way, Jane is testing today. And so I admire that she's willing to ride around with me on test day. But she should be very confident going in. She's done great!

Steve:
Okay. Let's do this. I'm just going to talk you through this and  I'm only going to jump in if I think you need a little bit of help. So for the listener, we're looking at two tall orange cones. We've got two red painted marks on the curb. And so we're not really parking between cars and we have a big tree planted in the middle. Okay. So signal, rear view mirror, blind spot. And we're going to pull over somewhere about three feet away from that cone. And we're going to get it parallel in, that's good, signal popped off and Jane's putting it back on. Right. Here we go. We turn it hard right, and then we just go very slow. This is a good speed. We want to get about halfway in and this is good. Okay. We may be a little close to this cone. When most people back in, they rarely actually do the backing perfectly. So at this point, correcting straightening, centering if you can do that. It really doesn't matter if you make some minor mistakes on the initial backend. So what do you think you need to do here?

Jane:
I moved back a little bit.

Steve:
Yep. This is one of our hybrid cars too.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. I can tell it keeps shutting down, which would have thrown me in Driver Ed.

Steve:
Yeah. If we take 17 minutes to parallel park, it will shut down. Okay. Now we are just inside the gutter. This is legal parking straightened centered. And with the pressure of a microphone, you did it right.

Anthony Godfrey:
The only time I've been scared on the whole drive with you is when I thought Mr. Galley was going to make me parallel park.

Steve:
I actually thought about it. But then I remembered that technically you are my boss.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this. This has been awesome, Mr. Galley. Thank you so much for talking with me and taking me on a drive, Maddie and Jane. Congrats on having your license and Jane, I have every confidence you are going to pass this test with flying colors.

Jane:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for a great drive you guys. We had a lot of fun with Jane and Maddie and their instructor, Steve Galley. Hopefully you heard something here today that will help you as parents navigate all the anxiety that may come with having new teen drivers in the house. Thanks to everyone for listening. And remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see out there.