Teens struggle to get on road

By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer

Nearly two years after a new state law required driver education for those under 18, schools are overwhelmed with students seeking classes, and thousands of teens and their families are faced with two choices: wait or pay.

Sixteen-year-old Barron Nakama, an 11th grader at Pearl City High, takes a practice road test with driver's education teacher, Ronald Aoki. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

State officials say the program is working, but parents, teens and even certified instructors who can't meet the huge demand are frustrated at situations like these:

• About 2,000 teens received driver training through public high schools last year, not many more than what the Department of Education was handling before the law was in place and a far cry from the more than 31,000 students eligible to get a driver's permit.
• Long waiting lists have become the norm at virtually all public high schools that offer the program. Farrington High's list contains 130 names. Roosevelt High School uses a lottery system instead, and more than 300 teens put their names into the lottery quarterly hoping to get one of 30 available spots.

Some say more money is needed. Others say that driver education needs to be a part of the curriculum and not an after-school activity. Still others say parents need to take responsibility for paying for the training. Whatever the solution, the situation isn't likely to improve in the short term.

"There's no way we can service everybody," said Fred Nagao, a driver education instructor at Farrington High School and president of the Hawai'i Association of Safety-Traffic Instructors. "To meet the demand, we need more time, more teachers, more money. Everything comes down to money."

State-sponsored programs are supported by auto insurance policies. One dollar from every policy issued in the state is routed to the state DOE's driver education program. When the law took effect Jan. 1 of last year, the state increased the allocation to $2 per policy, totaling about $600,000 a year. But schools say they haven't seen the money — or the relief — yet.

Hawai'i is one of the last states to mandate teen driver education, and the law was intended to curb accidents and fatalities involving the state's youngest drivers, who are involved in more crashes than any other age group, statistics show.

From 1986 to 1999, drivers between the ages of 15 and 25 accounted for 20 percent of all fatalities in the state. During those 14 years, fewer than 20 percent of teen drivers took any type of formal driver education program. Teens were involved in 1,497 crashes in 1999 alone, suffering 1,596 injuries.

Instructor Ronald Aoki watches barron Nakama's eyes in a mirror on the teacher's side of the instruction vehicle. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

A handful of schools — Farrington, Waipahu and Waiakea High on the Big Island among them — offer driver education as a half-credit elective during the regular school day. But most schools offer only after-school and/or summer programs, which are staffed by part-time teachers and offer far fewer slots and have a far longer waiting list. Farrington is able to train about 300 kids per year, compared with Roosevelt High, which handles about 130 per year with its extra-curricular program.

"I think kids need to take driver education, but public schools are only budgeted to take in so many kids," said Glenn Sasaki, a counselor who runs the drivers ed program at Roosevelt High.

Nagao would love to see driver education become part of the curriculum in all schools. Some states have made passing the program a requirement to graduate, and he believes Hawai'i should follow suit.

State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Marilyn Kali believes adding driver education to the curriculum is one solution, but she noted that while the state adopted the law requiring it, it's not solely the state's responsibility to provide the training.

"The more schools willing to offer the class as an elective during the school day, the more they'll be able to handle the demand," said Kali. "It's something we're still working through."

But, she said, "there's no lack of classes or instructors." Parents "just have to pay for it."

But many parents can't afford or are unwilling to pay the price of private instruction, and that means their teens must wait.

Ruby Yasumoto has already put her 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl, on the waiting list at Pearl City High School. Only about 200 students pass through the program each year. And with about 150 teens on the waiting list, Yasumoto hopes her daughter will get in the class by the time she's old enough to get a permit.

"We know there's a big demand," said Yasumoto, 47, of Waipi'o Gentry. "We knew we'd have to wait."

Sixteen-year-old Barron Nakama, (right), an 11th grader at Pearl City High, takes a road test for his driver's license with driver's education teacher, Ronald Aoki. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

The 16-year-old junior signed up with a private instructor, who charges $375 total for classroom and behind-the-wheel instruction.

Nakama will likely get his license well before his friends do. He has already completed his classroom training while some of them are still waiting to get into the class at school. And he has only about four hours left of behind-the-wheel training before he tries for his license sometime next week.

But he has to get his license if he wants to play soccer or get a job.

Instructors say they have noticed a sense of urgency on the part of teens from double-income households who need a driver's license to get from school to work or practice.

"We've noticed that a lot in the Kalihi area," Nagao said. "A lot of these kids have to go to work. That's when the licenses are needed. They can't depend on family or public transportation."

It's clear that more students are taking advantage of commercial classes. Today there are more than 250 certified instructors in the state, and before the law took effect there were fewer than 100. But commercial driving instructors said demand hasn't been overwhelming.

Sensing opportunity, Ronald Aoki quit his job at First Assembly of God and signed up for an instructor training class last year.

Business wasn't good at first, but it's been picking up, he said, thanks to long school waiting lists and impatient teens. All nine of his students are from Pearl City High and 'Aiea High. And all are enrolled in his program because they couldn't get into their school's.

"We're only now getting the demand," said Aoki, of Drive Safe Hawai'i.

Nagao said more students are definitely getting their licenses at an older age, either because they're waiting to get into a DOE class or until they turn 18 and don't have to take the class.

Private school students may be the ones who wait the longest. Without an affordable, state-sponsored program at their schools, many of them sit at the bottom of waiting lists when they turn to the public schools in their district. Most schools give priority to their students before allowing private school students into the program.

Some students graduate high school without having ever gotten into a driver education class.

"It can be really unfair to the seniors because some of them have been waiting for so long," Sasaki said. "But it's just the luck of the draw."

Reach Catherine E. Toth at 535-8103 or ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Correction: A previous version of this story indicated Barron Nakama was taking a road test for his driver's licence with his driver’s education teacher. The caption was incorrect because of a photographer’s error.