"I Went to Driving School"

Miscellaneous General
1

This article by Karen DeCoster on LewRockwell.com made me curious as to what driving schools constitute around our world.

Driving Schools, as I know them from my dear homeland of Germany, are heavily regulated “free market” institutions one must attend for quite some time before a government employee is taking the driver’s license aspirant for a “test drive”. “Quite some time” means you need to take at least 14 lessons of formal schooling within the driving school and at least 12 lessons in actual driving on the road (by law). Needless to say, due to the very limited competition these schools face, it’s much more than that in 90% of the cases. After passing a formal exam and pleasing the government employee by driving “safely”, you will be handed your driver’s license. If you fail, you are allowed to try again later.

Of course, every step of the process costs you money. My driver’s license was about 1800 euros, with 15 formal and about 30 practical lessons. Mind you, that’s average.

So, how do driving schools improve your communities?

2

Wow, that’s really expensive.

It varies by state in the United States, I believe… Here in Wisconsin, we have different standards for different ages. 16 year olds must have 6 months experience with a learner’s permit and at least 12 hours or so of driving lessons (plus some number of classroom lessons that I don’t remember). If I recall correctly, supposedly we need 6 hours of behind-the-wheel and 6 hours of observation (i.e. sitting in the backseat while someone else has a behind-the-wheel). Needless to say, there aren’t a lot of driving schools around here. When I think about it, I was really lucky to have had a good driving instructor.

To be honest, I don’t really remember much of this bureaucratic mess.