Driver’s ed now mandated for Florida teens, but not lessons behind a wheel
Orlando Sentinel | By Zoey Thomas |
Florida teenagers will need to take a driver’s education class to earn their learner’s permit starting next month, thanks to a new state law that eliminates a shorter online course many relied on to get on the road.
The new law still does not require teens to have formal, on-the-road driving lessons, but it does require a longer online course before teens can get their permit at age 15. The motor safety advocate who helped craft the bill hopes down the road Florida will demand behind-the-wheel classes before young drivers are licensed.
About 80% of Florida’s teenagers had not been taking the state’s existing driver’s education course through the state’s public education system, according to state Rep. Michelle Salzman (R-Escambia), who sponsored the legislation (HB 889).
Instead, many chose to take the shorter, four-hour Traffic Law Substance Abuse Education course, which will no longer be an option.
The driver’s education class requires at least two hours more lessons than the traffic law class, with the total length dependent on the provider.
William “Griz” Deaver, whose motorcycle rights group ABATE of Florida helped write the bill, said he still wants a hands-on requirement, convinced it would reduce driving fatalities caused by young drivers. He said he was “satisfied but not happy” with what lawmakers passed.
Nearly 450 people died in Florida traffic crashes involving young drivers in 2022, about one-third of which led to the death of the young drivers themselves, according to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. That makes up 12.7% of total fatalities for that year.
“They made me settle with the explanation that if we get the virtual [course] passed, we can build on it and eventually get hands-on training,” said Deaver, who has pushed for in-person driver’s education for decades.
The Astatula resident remembers taking behind-the-wheel lessons from his gym teacher as a teenager and argued a virtual class “doesn’t really teach anything.”
In neighboring Georgia, students must complete 30 hours of online or in-person classroom instruction in addition to six hours of in-car training to get their license. Some other states, including Hawaii, Vermont, Wisconsin and Louisiana, also have behind-the-wheel requirements of at least six hours.
Though Florida’s new law takes effect July 1, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has created a one-month transition period. So in July, both the old, shorter course and the new one will be accepted, officials said.
Only about 140 Florida high schools out of more than 500 offered driver’s education last fall, according to data from the Florida Department of Education. As a result, many students who took the state’s driver’s education did it through the Florida Virtual School or its county franchises.
But many found it easiest to skip the course altogether and do the quicker traffic law course, Salzman said.
“There’s a lot of rural communities where kids weren’t able to take Driver’s Ed even if they wanted to, because they had no access unless they did Florida Virtual School,” Salzman said. “And a lot of those kids didn’t opt into Florida Virtual School because it’s just a pain in the butt.”
Signing up for the FLVS class online requires registering and getting the course approved through a school counselor, according to the organization’s website.
Salzman said she hopes more private organizations that offered the old traffic safety course will now develop curriculum compliant with the new law, adding more online content so they cover at least the six hours of lessons the state now requires.
Fran Iwanski of the Orange Osceola Safety Institute said the state is moving in the right direction to help teenagers learn to drive, although she questions adding one more roadblock to a generation already hesitating to get their drivers licenses.
“There are a lot of delays we’re seeing in getting licensing,” she said. “The old belief was that your driver’s license gave you freedom to go where you wanted to go and get you used to being independent … you don’t see that.”
Nationally, the number of 16-year-olds who have drivers licenses has decreased nearly 27% over the last 25 years, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Brent Bond, owner of the Winter Park Driving Academy, said many driving schools are worried how the law will impact their businesses. After July 1, students will need to pass the new online class before they take on-the-road lessons. In the past, most took the now disallowed class before signing up for Bond’s classes.
“Students are out of school, and there’s a high demand for behind the wheel training, and it’s all hands on deck for us — we have all of our six Toyota Camrys driving pretty much day and night right now,” he said. “So it’s hard to find time to kind of sit down and do this.”
Florida Virtual School is preparing to scale up quickly if demand increases, said Chief Academic Officer Robin Winder in a statement to the Orlando Sentinel.
About 71,000 students took Driver’s Ed through FLVS in the 2023-24 school year, Winder wrote, typically completing it in nine to 10 weeks.
Ashden Capps, a 15-year-old Winter Park High School student, said he completed the FLVS class in time to get his permit on his 15th birthday in October. He plans to get his driver’s license the day he turns 16.
“I like cars,” he said, explaining his quick plans for a license while some of his peers put it off.
The rising sophomore said he finished his online training in about six weeks and called the content “really helpful” in teaching the rules of the road.
Students in Orange, Brevard and Polk counties can also get six hours of free behind-the-wheel training from the Florida Safety Council if they take the FLVS class and then get their learner’s permit.
Ashden, however, is “not too keen” on taking advantage of those lessons, said his mother, Eden Capps. He doesn’t see the point when he can learn how to drive from his parents and still get his license, she said.
Capps said she’s conflicted on whether behind-the-wheel training should be mandatory, remembering that she didn’t have any formal lessons when she learned to drive — she just got in the car and drove, with family members constantly pointing out stoplights and traffic signs along the way.
“It’s nerve wracking,” she said, teaching a teenager to drive. “We make so many mistakes every day, but mistakes when driving are deadly.”
