The people in charge of traditional driver education maintain that teenagers drive so badly because they lack experience behind the wheel.  The remedy they suggest is graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) which mandates that teens have years of experience before they can obtain full driving privileges.

Does experience, by itself, really teach good driving?  Look around.  Most of those drivers out there are experienced.  They do not slow down in fog.  They cannot keep a proper following distance.  They signal their intentions only when it suits them.  They cannot merge smoothly onto expressways.  They disregard speed limits not only out on open roads, but in congested towns and cities.  They can’t even finish their turns in the proper; i.e., legally designated lane!  Clearly, experience is not the key to good driving.

Then why is there this great push for Graduated Driver Licensing?  The powers that be in driver education don’t know what else to do.  Their only other method, making emotional appeals to drive “safely,” never worked either, and the obvious concept of simply TEACHING GOOD DRIVING is alien, even threatening to traditional high school driver education.