Driver education has been a long standing response to the tragically high risk of young novice drivers. For the purposes of this paper, driver education (DE) means beginner, pre-licensing driver instruction. Traditionally, DE has meant a formal course of study, delivered by a paid instructor that includes both classroom instruction and in-car training. In some jurisdictions, classroom instruction and in-car training are addressed and delivered separately. Also, in some jurisdictions, regulatory provisions recognize a formal course delivered by parents. A concise and detailed history of driver education can be found in a paper by Dr. James Nichols (2003) prepared for the 2003 National Transportation Safety Board hearings on driver education. In recent times, there have been profound changes in the technological, business arrangement, and regulatory environments in which driver education operates, and in the driver licensing context. To a much greater extent than in the past, DE is now highly diverse in its delivery, including traditional high school driver education, driving schools, and home schooling, as well as computer- and web-based instruction. Even though there appears to have been relatively little development in driver education content, DE is much less a single entity than it has been historically. This complicates answering evaluation questions such as, .Does driver education work? How can its effects be improved?. The purpose of this paper is to review how these questions have been asked and answered in the past, in support of the development of guidelines for improving driver education evaluation now and in the future. (Author/publisher)
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