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Local Students Driven To Make Roads Safer

Tribune photo by NATALIE GAGLIORDI

Armwood High School junior Carissa DiGeronimo completes a lesson on the Raydon Virtual Simulator in the driver's education classroom.

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By NATALIE GAGLIORDI

Special to the Tribune

Published: March 2, 2008

TAMPA - TAMPA - TAMPA - A group of Hillsborough County students hopes the state will tack on an extra graduation requirement for high school students, one they say will save lives — driver's education.

According to a Florida Traffic Crash Statistics Report from 2006, drivers age 15 to 19 have the highest crash rate per 10,000 licensed drivers, while 18-year-old drivers have the highest rate of involvement in fatal crashes.

Although all 50 states have some type of driver's education program, many are not mandatory. A bill proposed by students for state Rep. Kevin Ambler's "Ought to Be a Law" contest would make completion of classroom and behind-the-wheel driver's education courses a high school graduation requirement.

Ambler, a Republican from Tampa, created the bill-drafting competition in 2004. The contest aims to educate students on the legislative process by offering them a chance to write, research, lobby, and present a bill during the legislative session in Tallahassee.

The bill is being researched and drafted in part by students at Chamberlain High School, where sophomore T.J. Mouse, 15, who won the contest, originated the idea.

"I took driver's ed this past semester," Mouse said, "so I saw the improvement in my classroom. I knew that other kids that weren't taking it were pretty bad drivers, so it sparked the idea in my brain."

Money Is Main Sticking Point

To the surprise of Mouse and his parents, they could not find any record of a bill seeking mandatory driver's education being proposed to the Florida Legislature.

"Its amazing to us that it's not already a law that it's mandatory to take," said T.J.'s father, Tim. "It's unbelievable to us. T.J. pointed it out that it wasn't mandatory and I was taken aback by it. Other states, they have these laws on the books already."

One of the key reasons Florida has yet to adopt a mandatory driver's education policy is cost, said Dennis Holt, Supervisor of Driver's Education and High School Social Studies for Hillsborough County. Unlike some Florida school districts, Hillsborough County offers behind-the-wheel experience in an elective course in addition to classroom driver's education.

Holt said that Hillsborough County spends close to $800,000 a year on the cars used in the course, including gas and insurance. If the bill passes, another $1.5 million would be needed for teachers' salaries, he said.

Hillsborough County would have a much easier time making the switch to a mandatory program than neighboring Manatee County, Holt said.

"We are fortunate; we already have a program in place," Holt said. "If you went down to Manatee County and said, 'OK, you are going to have to take this course,' you can imagine what a tremendous financial burden that would be on a school district that did not already offer the course."

Counties without the driving portion of the class offered at the school rely on private driving schools, which Holt said can be costly.

"To me that's the key thing that really sets Hillsborough County apart, in that you actually drive in a car," Holt said. "There is a lot of class time devoted to students sitting in a car, in a safe environment, learning how to drive."

Armwood High School is among the public schools in the county with a full-blown, up-to-date driver's education course. For $40, students can enroll in the elective course, which will assist them in obtaining their restricted license through the written test, completion of the drug and alcohol awareness course, as well as giving them behind-the-wheel training.

Road Safety Seen As Key Lesson

Mike Wyatt, a coach and driver's education teacher at Armwood, feels that making the course mandatory would be beneficial to students.

"I think if students started out in driver's ed when they first started driving, maybe they would understand a little more about how powerful that car is and how much it can do," Wyatt said. "The things we teach them are things they are going to use everyday for the rest of their life."

Linda Murillo of Sarasota County agrees with the benefits a mandatory driver's education program would bring to students. Her son, Tyler Isenhour, was killed in a car crash in November 2006, just four days after receiving his driver's license.

Murillo said she attempted to enroll her son in the driver's education course that Lakewood Ranch High School offered over the summer, but a two-year waiting list for the class made it impossible for her son to receive the lectures and simulator training that she thinks could have saved his life.

"Tyler had 150 hours of training behind-the-wheel by me and my husband, but there were a lot of things I could not have simulated in the car, like hydroplaning and other distractions," Murillo said.

While her son was driving, he became distracted by his radio falling out, Murillo said, and as he reached down to pick it up, he lost control and hit a median at 35 mph. The car flipped and the impact snapped his brain stem, causing his death, she said.

"He would be here today if he had had training," Murillo said.

Hillsborough County has offered some type of driver's education course for the past several decades, looking at it as a service to the community, Holt said.

"It's not just about education and graduation requirements," Holt said. "I think a huge consideration has to be public safety. It is a very important program in that it adds to that public safety."

The bill is set for review during the legislative session that begins Tuesday.

Murillo plans to testify in Tallahassee on behalf of the bill, which is expected to bear her son's name.

Tim Mouse says mandatory driver's education is "just another way to give kids a little more confidence and a little more education so that when they do get behind the wheel they don't go out and do damage to somebody. Hopefully in a few years it will be all 50 states that have made this a law."

ABOUT THIS REPORT

This report is part of a multimedia project produced by a University of South Florida journalism class in cooperation with The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8.

Correspondents Christina Jasin and MacKenzie Clark contributed to this report.

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