OK, so the sign and the car that CC Cohort runningonfumes shot don’t quite match up. But what a fine sign it is. So here’s a chance to reminisce about Driver’s Ed. What car did you drive? And did you have simulators? Like these:
Here’s a group heading out in 1953. Look at how they’ve got their hands on the gear shift. Did it jerk back if you dumped the clutch?
Or maybe something a bit more modern, like this one. Yes, that could be me, at Towson High’s excellent Driver Ed facility, except my hair is too short. “I’m going to nail that guy stepping into the street!” Looks like a Mopar steering wheel to me, with an automatic. When did they stop teaching on manuals?
And here’s what I drove around Loch Raven Reservoir, on my first legal drive. Same color too. I was already seventeen and a half, since my parents’ punishment for getting caught driving at fifteen was to postpone my license until eighteen. They relented six months early. But I had two years of regular practice in between.
I made up some BS story to the Driver Ed teacher that I had already had a learner’s permit in Iowa, and was an experienced (legal) driver. So he spared me the first drive in the parking lot, and just had me head out. The brand new Chevy’s 350/THM combo was buttery smooth, and by 1970, big Chevys finally had decent sized 15″ tires, and handled unlike those of yore. Not that I pushed it hard on that trip. I was determined to give him a ride fit for the pope, and the Impala was an obliging partner. He never asked me to drive again. Too bad; nothing more boring than to have to ride around in the back of a Driver’s Ed car on a summer day. I should have pretended to be a nincompoop.
I’ll bet just about all of us remember this trivia from our past.
Mine was a White 4 door Pontiac Ventura ll . 1976.
’67 Ford Fairlane four-door. Silver blue, automatic of course, with that stupid chest cone in place of a collapsing steering column. Driver’s ed was two road sessions per week, during the marching band period. I hated band, loved to drive. Still remember the story of the girl in my class who, when told that she was going to pull over and park the car, slammed the transmission lever into Park – at 45-50 mph.
It was a Ford. As far as I was concerned, they deserved that kind of treatment.
Mine was a 1997 or 1998 Ford Escort LX. California had just made it mandatory that you had to get a certified 6 hours from an accredited driving school the January before I turned 15, so it was a $150 expense. I did the training over the 2 week Christmas Break in 1997, so when I finished drivers ed at the end of 3rd quarter and finished my permit test, all I had to do was pass the driving test. Which I did on my 16th Birthday.
And of course they charged more for manual transmission courses (an extra $75) which my father objected to (Both Oldsmobiles were automatic so why bother?). So, hence why 15 years later I get frustrated everytime I see a 4 speed Corvair for sale.
And also, Drivers Ed was combined with Sex Ed at my high school. Make your own “Drive a stick” jokes.
Looks like its a sex ed class here also. They are obviously in the session on the sex in the middle (whatever that is).
Sex ed class? Back in my day (mid-60’s) there was a year or two of health class where, er, certain subjects were obliquely hinted at. However, if a kid in my school had gone home and said, “Mr./Miss/Mrs. __________ was discussing sex in class today.” said child’s parent would have been in the principal’s office first thing next morning, meeting the head of the school board that afternoon, and by that evening Mr./Miss/Mrs. __________ would have been unemployed.
Welcome to mid-late 1990s Northern California, where we got “how to put on a condom.” lessons with anatomically “correct” average prosthetic penii. It’s actually one of the most beneficial things I learned from High School.
This can happen today, here. We’re only slightly less prude than the Victorians. Welcome to modern India! Of course, only the theory is taboo. The practice seems to go unchecked (cue in huge population joke).
My drivers ed car was a yellow 1975 Mercury Marquis, very much like the one featured here some time back. The base model with black cloth interior. Every kid learning to drive should have to learn on one of these. Wide and wallowy, and a lot of car to squeeze into a parallel parking space. Thank goodness for those 5 mph bumpers (and sorry if yours was one of the cars on either side of our parking space).
The challenges were keeping that wide thing actually in a single lane, being able to tell when you were in a single lane, and being able to make right turns without the right rear wheel hopping over the curb on the corner. After practice on the Marquis, Mom’s 74 Luxury LeMans felt like a svelte little sports car. Actually, just about anything would have.
We had simulators too, something with a late 60s Mopar steering wheel, sort of like a late 60s Valiant. I still remember the mechanical shudder programmed into the clutch pedal as we practiced rowing the 3 on the column.
Taking drivers ed in a car like this should allow you to get a drivers license and a captain license.
I guess my high school driver’s ed class was in 1971 or 1972 and the car was some sort of dark green Plymouth 4-door sedan – it had horribly uncomfortable rear seats and we sat three across back there. My instructor – a physics teacher by day – raced a TR6 on the weekends in SCCA events. And the school had a trailer with simulators – we lost points if we ran anyone over.
My dad taught me to drive. I still have nightmares.
My first lessons were in his 1978 Chevy van, which had manual steering. Later lessons were in the family car, a 1983 Renault Alliance MT, which had a five-speed transmission. That and the decent stereo were the car’s redeeming qualities, as the thing was sooooooooo slow.
I wrote about these cars on my blog a long time ago.
The van: http://blog.jimgrey.net/2010/01/25/the-iron-maiden/
The Renault: http://blog.jimgrey.net/2010/02/01/das-renault/
Holy crap I have to answer this. The car wasn’t particularly interesting, Ford Escort with a brake on the passenger side and long metal rod attached to the accelerator (no extra steering wheel).
The instructor dude was in his 70’s, would rub smelly bengay on himself during the ride, wore soccer cleats each session, and had the passenger footwell lined with large river rocks! WTF?!
1978 Buick Skylark 2 door complete w Broughamtastic padded landau top.
Puke-green ’72 Impala. Mr. Jenness, our driving instructor (and HS Football coach), had pedal access via cross-rods IIRC.
I took low budget driver’s ed at the local high school during the summer when I was 15 (in our state you could get your license at age 16+one month with driver’s ed, 16+six months without it). The class was taught by our coach (who, of course, also taught social studies) and consisted of films and time in the car. There were two instructors for the real time driving experience and two cars supplied by local dealers, a burgundy 1965 Chevrolet Impala four-door hardtop with A/C and a 1965 white Plymouth Fury III four-door sedan without A/C. I got coach and the Plymouth. We had films in the morning and drove in the afternoon.
We kids in the Plymouth envied those in the sleek Impala as they drove off with the windows closed and the A/C humming. At least the Fury had wind wings, was white, and had light blue upholstery in a combination of woven cloth and vinyl that wasn’t too sticky. Neither car had dual controls and I well remember the coach moving his foot over and stamping down on the accelerator when one of the students failed to sufficiently speed up while attempting to pass another car on a two-lane road. I’m pretty sure the Impala had the 283 and the Fury the 318. 1965 was the year when Chrysler went away from pushbutton controls for the automatic and our Fury’s shift quadrant indicator did not line up perfectly with the gear you were in. I remember a few other quality of assembly issues but overall it was a smooth-running car with good visibility that was easy to drive and park.
The chief focus of the films was to scare the students: lots of blood and gore in accidents resulting from reckless driving, etc. I do remember one quality film from the whole bunch that emphasized getting The Big Picture while driving, e.g., keep your eyes moving around constantly to see what is going on all around you. It was a lesson that has served me well in nearly five decades of driving.
I never took drivers’ ed. My Dad taught me how to drive in 1968. He was a very good teacher. He took me to a county park, where I could drive on the little deserted roads and learn to drive a standard shift.
I passed the second time I took my driving test. The first time, I was so nervous, I stalled the car while making the three point turn.
I think my high school had a Plymouth or Dodge, a mid size white Coronet or Belvedere.
Ah yes, Drivers Ed in 1976. My highlights were the driving safety films like Signal 30 ” featuring numerous scenes of mutilated cars and injured/dead people”? my buddies and I brought popcorn and cokes to watch it and the instructor actually let us have at it, one guy puked 🙂
The lowlights were the fleet of 1969 Plymouth Fury’s in Green, Beige and Blue. School district staff cars with 318’s Drivers ed vehicles at their craptastic finest.
for those of you who have never seen Signal 30
http://archive.org/details/Signal301959
Before the prom they always had a big assembly where everybody saw Signal 30. I wonder how many horror film fans were created by Signal 30.
I recently saw the 1960 “Signal 30” from Ohio . . . you can find that on YouTube where, the 1964 CHP “Red Asphalt” is nowhere to be found . . . .
Signal 30 films?
Look it up. Who was the director?
Richard Wayman
No, not me. But I had to laugh when I found that out. Was forced to watch too many of those in my early years. Hated those damn things.
As Laurence noted, here in CA, you have to pay for private driving instruction. Of course, mom picked the cheapest she could find, which netted me a late-model Corolla with an instructor who spoke barely-intelligible English.
Parents willing to plop down a substantially dearer $1,400 can now enroll their little angel in Mercedes’ driver’s ed program:
http://us.mbdrivingacademy.com/program/integrated-program2/integrated-program3
I’ve heard of extremely smart parents with the ability to send their teen to Arizona for a day or three, who enrolled them in the Bob Bondurant teen driving program.
I knew a Canadian woman whose father had done something like that for her when she was a teenager — I don’t think it was the Bondurant school, but it was a similar racing program. Her dad owned a 300SL coupe, so he had strong feelings about the importance of driving skill.
I had Driver’s Ed the summer of 1975 at San Rafael (Cal.) High School. Why the summer? My birthday is in November, so I had to take it in summertime.
We two Driver’s Ed Cars: A ’75 Buick Century Station Wagon and for our stick shift car, a ’74 Chevy Nova (350 4-bbl three on the tree).
We had the Aetna Driver’s Simulators with hardware based on a late ’50’s Ford.
’72 Polara.
Illinois law required driver’s education, thus provided by my high school. I had a late birthday (September), so I had my permit at 15 years, 5 months of age.
The school had worked out a deal with a Ford / Buick dealer to get a new car every 3000 miles. So during my sophomore year of high school, we started with a gray ’88 Buick Century. By the time I had my three months of driver’s ed, I got one driving trip in a white ’88 Taurus that was soon traded out for a nasty ’88 Escort four-door. I suppose we put too many miles on their cars.
I drove that Escort a lot. It was revved up like a chainsaw when driving down the interstate and was as exciting as a nose bleed. That Escort is part of the reason I still have a phobia about four-cylinder automobiles.
As for my experiences on both ends of the deal:
1) No drivers ed for me. Dad taught me in his ’61 VW bug, in a parking lot and out on suburban streets and highways. Scary at times (“Hey look at that…NOT YOU STOP NOW!!) but effective enough. Then I went to driving graduate school by driving in Boston ten years.
2) Stepson was state karting champion in the third grade. Therefore he was already a skillful and accomplished driver. Or so he thought. He had drivers ed in high school. We went out and he eventually burned out the clutch in my Celica (maybe it was about clutch time anyway). Then there’s the experience and judgment issue…after a few months on his own he totaled his Toyota pickup in an unexpected sudden stop on a rush hour freeway. Banged up an old Saab 99 for awhile until it died. Spring break one year we’re awakened at 5:30 am with Lily’s Alfa GTV-6 on the hook after he spun it out and broke a wheel. By then our insurance was insane, we made him turn in his license, and we had a helluva time convincing the insurance co. he really wasn’t driving our cars when he was 100 miles away at college in Eugene. About five years later we bought him an old Kia he picked out as a wedding present. That was a sensible choice, it got banged up too but lasted several years, then totaled by a Hummer at a light, not his fault.
“What’s a mother to do?”
Good story.
Suggestion for Paul for a new posting –
“What was the first car you totalled?” (with no serious injuries hopefully)
1962 Vauxhall Victor here (it didn’t take much…)
Driver education wasn’t required when I started to drive, and my parents both thought it was load of hooey anyhow. After all, how much could the track coach know about driving? So I learned in our ’61 Corvair 700 sedan, with Powerglide and a thumping 98 gross bhp.
OK, forget about driver’s ed, I want to know about the tangle of mysteries that is this picture!
1) 1961 Falcon with 1962 Washington plates and sticker, obviously on a modern road.
2) Rear window sticker with a ten-digit Seattle phone number and a web URL.
3) “Eat Koko’s Crab Cakes” bumper sticker. Koko’s crab cakes are in Baltimore.
4) Old driving school sign from Ohio.
5) Not to mention the surfboard.
You forgot #6: Old Falcon provided by the local Chevrolet-Oldsmobile dealer? You’d a thought he’d at least come up with a Chevy II or F-85.
Duh!
AND, if you go to the cohort and look at the photo of the front, there’s a different, modern Washington state plate… This car is a gateway to the Twilight Zone! Is it 1962 or 2012? Is it Ohio, or Washington? Is it really a Ford, or does it just look like one? Oh, and BTW, my driver’s ed car was a red Dart 4-door with a Vinyl top.
Indeed! Or 1998, the sticker on the front plate? Water bag hanging on the front, what’s up with that?
Bongos! Bongos were so cool in ’62.
Seriously….
Is this Maynard Krebs’ car?
Maybe that other plate lying on the rear shelf is the Ohio plate? The plot thickens…
Our drivers ed car was a dual control 1979 AMC Concord DL.
We also had mid 1960 ‘s mopar simulators. They would start to shake when the speedomoter got near 100 MPH.
In New York State, we didn’t have driver education in high school. If you needed instruction, you could find a private service to get it from but back in the 80’s it’s wasnt mandatory.
The process for me was:
– go to DMV, take 10 question multiple choice test to get a learners permit.
– complete the 5 hour DMV classroom course (i did mine at a local church)
– take the road test at the county DMV office.
the road test was a 5-10 minute drive around town (side streets, no highways), parallel park once, and thats about it. If you passed, you got your license on the spot (but back to DMV for a photo and of course to pay another small fee). Before the mid 80’s, there was no 5 hour course, meaning if scheduling allowed it, you could complete this process in a matter of days. My brother went from applying for a permit to having a license in three days.
i took my road test in my parents ’84 XJ Cherokee, which the tester was not impressed with as it didn’t have A/C and it was quite hot that June day. But he passed me anyway 🙂
Driver’s Ed in my high school was lectures and films, followed by multiple choice questions completed using a box with push buttons called an Idex machine.
My father taught me to drive in our 1969 Chrysler Town and Country in the train station parking lot. After driving and parking that thing anything was easy. My parents would let me play with the 1976 Vega, so long as I stayed in the driveway, so I could learn a manual transmission.
To get a discount on the insurance I was sent to a driving school. The car I drover there was a 1977 Plymouth Volare.
I took my test in my father’s 1976 Chrysler Cordoba.
For a small town, Bishop, California (population 3,000) was in fat city when it came to driver training cars. Each of the three big (well, in relation to the tiny Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge and International Harvester-Jeep stores) car dealers kicked in a brand new sedan every year. And when I took driver training in the fall of 1971, there were the following brand-spanking new 1972 models waiting:
1) Ford Galaxie. 240 CID six with an automatic. Courtesy Eastern Sierra Motors.
2) Chevy Impala. 350 CID V8 with an automatic. Courtesy Virgil Oyler Motors.
3) Pontiac Catalina. 455 CID 4bbl V8 with an automatic. Courtesy Perry Motors.
Sure, that 455 was only putting out 250 horsepower, but that’s academic when you consider the other choices.
My best friend and I did a little detective work (okay, we talked to the auto shop teacher, who was responsible for the beasts each year), found out which of the three teachers was assigned the Catalina and made sure we signed up for Mr. Walkup…who, as it turned out, was narcoleptic.
He was okay in a classroom, but get him out on the highway between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes, let the tire noise and the white lines do their thing at 70 MPH, and he was out like a light…allowing us to nudge the 455 a bit.
Well, more than a bit.
Okay, my buddy and I got her up to 105. Mr. Walkup thought his watch had stopped when he woke up, we made such great time back from Mammoth.
Slightly off-topic, but I think only Ford, Toyota and Honda have stores in Bishop anymore. How times have changed. Though the names Eastern Sierra and Perry sound familiar, from my many drives through town. I think learning to drive in San Francisco was a good experience for me, but blasting up 395 sounds like more fun! I try to get out there a few times a year, usually on 2 wheels.
Driver’s ed can’t get any better than that. 455 Catalinas were quite a rarity. What a blast!
By contrast, I did the Driver’s school thing & our car was an ’83’-’85ish Cavalier sedan. It was a very easy car to drive & I liked it. My IL driver’s test was in my stepmother’s ’84 Sunbird Convertible with foggy plastic rear window. I somehow passed the backing-around-a-curbed-corner test.
My driver’s ed car?
Dad’s 1960 Chevy Impala Sports Sedan with dad next to me. 283 powerglide and vacuum tube AM radio. A guy needed nothing more!
Man, I had fun in that car – until Dad bought the 1966 Chevy Impala Sports Sedan, of course, in Feb. 1968…
In high school at South County Tech in Sunset Hills, MO, we watched the films…the real thing and very gory. No, I didn’t appreciate seeing someone’s brains across a steering wheel, either… Needless to say, that made an impression. Probably why I’ve always been a cruiser and never a hot-rodder…
1980 Brevard County school system. Lot’s of 1960’s FHP blood and gore films. I remember one where the troopers went to someone’s home to inform the parents that their child was killed in an accident.
Lane Pontiac-Buick-GMC loaned the school a new Trans Am Turbo, a Buick Regal Limited and by cruel fate the other cars were worn out county cars. Old Galaxies? We never left the track field. And by the time I took Drivers Ed, I had plenty of experience in Dads GMC Jimmy at home.
The public shcool system back then offered Drivers Ed. The local dealer supplied a 73 Olds Cutlass 2 door. Blue, white interior, half vinyl roof. I think it had swivel front buckets.
But, we had/have a cottage in a development with maybe 20 – 30 miles of dirt roads. I used to drive a 4 door Ford Galaxy by myself on the roads with no buildings on it when I was 13.
I think the driver’s ed car was either a 68 or ’69 Buick. Most likely a 68, with automatic, and the idle set rather high. As I recall, you could do 20 mph with your foot off the throttle. The driver’s ed instructor was the phys ed teacher, a no-nonsense guy.
The trainers were circa 1960. They had 3 on the tree for manual (the clutch had a vibrator to give a sense of feel) and Mopar style pushbutton shifting for the automatic. None of the on-the-road training was on a manual. OTOH my first road experience with a stick was on a 2 lane Michigan highway with my Aunt’s Vega in winter. Kind of fun and I didn’t stuff it. Alas, the only stick now is on the tractor–my wife has ankle problems.
Two driver’s ed cars. One was a 1970 Chevy Caprice and the other a Ford LTD of the same year. Both were 4-door hardtops. I don’t have any recollection of preferring one over the other. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. I was driving!
Incidentally, the instructor dubbed me “Lead-foot”.
1977 Dodge Aspen sedan was the HS drivers ed car. Brand new at the time, and I recall pressing on the gas and having not much happen. Rode quite nicely though and had the passenger side brake for the instructor.
Not an easy job and with the potential to be scary…one of the football jocks could not drive to save his life. I was in the back seat, bucking too and fro between his unwieldy accelerations and the counter braking by the instructor. He never made it to the freeway test that I can remember.
In June 1971 American Easy-Way Driving School, East Hartford CT. A 1970 Mustang hardtop, 302, C4, power steering (but not brakes), Two steering wheels, student and instructor. Lots of torque, light rear end. Car used for CT DMV test (I passed); compared to the family ’68 Microbus and ’70 Beetle, it was a rocket…
Mine was a white Nissan Micra, around 1990 or so.
My friend was in the same driver’s ed class as I was and he was over 6′ tall. He couldn’t fit in the Micra, so he got to drive the late ’80s Tercel instead. It doesn’t seem all that special now, but at the time, I was jealous!
I got to use the Tercel in the “emergency maneuvers” part of the training. Getting the back end to slide out around some cones in a snow-packed parking lot in January was a blast. Of course, having a former pro rally driver as an instructor made it a bit more fun too.
1961 Corvair with a slush box. Very exciting but I liked that car anyway. Handled like a sports car compared to the car I was already driving. We didn’t need the drivers ed to get a license IIRC but it made the insurance bite easier and was free from the high school. Mr Gribble was a coach and typing teacher along with drivers ed. No breaks for me as I was not thought of well by him due to the typing class. Oh well. Been driving since 1959 or 1960. The class was 1961.
I went to a private high school which offered driver’s ed (classroom) after school, but I had to go to a public school on weekends to do the behind-the-wheel training …. car and simulator. I don’t remember much about the simulators, but the first car was a green LTD; this was late summer 1972 and I think it was a ’71 or ’72, but I wasn’t really interested in big American sedans. For the last one or two sessions, we got a light-colored Plymouth Satellite. I am thinking it may have been an early 1973 model, as it had slightly larger bumpers and rubber-tipped over-riders. Wasn’t ’73 the first year for those? What I do remember was significantly better driving dynamics than the Ford, and really abysmal rear visibility during the parallel parking lessons, which we did on one of the steepest hills in San Francisco.
By contrast to the Ford and Plymouth, my parents had a Volvo 122S wagon with no power steering or brakes (122 wagons pre-1965 had 4-wheel drum brakes long after the sedans went to front discs) and the long wobbly gear shift. I liked the 122S and in fact went on to buy one as my first car a few years later, but the V8’s in the school cars had their charms …. as my only other behind-the-wheel experience at that time was my Grandfather’s Dodge Dart with the 225 six.
Metro Nashville Public Schools, summer of 1985, 1985 (I guess) Buick Regal mostly for on-road practice, plus an assortment of surplus government beaters (some Crown Vics and Fairmonts among them) for the driving course portion of the class. I remember our instructor would use us to drive him on personal errands during class time. He did not have the second wheel in the car but did have a brake pedal temporarily installed on his side.
My Driver’s Ed car was a 1961 Ford Falcon with automatic shift and of course the weak Ford straight 6 engine. As I recall, it did not have dual controls at all, just Mr. Massa in the passenger seat and 3 students sitting in the back while we each took the wheel for 15 minutes or so twice a week. It really wasn’t a bad little car for around the town driving but no fun in the hilly countryside of western Pennsylvania. Ironically, our teacher’s wife had been killed in a crash with a drunk driver just a few years before so he was one motivated driver ed teacher. (he was behind the wheel when she was killed.) He was a great guy and a great teacher. I had been driving the family 56 Ford Ranch Wagon with Thunderbird V-8 and 3 speed stick just around our 4 acres since I was 12 so was comfortable from day 1 in driver ed. (In fact I backed the wagon into a massive old apple tree with the tailgate window open when I was 13) The classes were all lecture and films. We had no fancy gear in our small rural county.
Early 1990s Chevy Corsicas. I hated the things. What sadist decided that the wiper control should go on the dash instead of a stalk off the steering column?
The “simulators” were always a joke. Very few seemed to pay any attention when the movie turned, stopped, etc. Pole Position at the arcade was a better simulator.
We used to get those 66 Belvedere simulators up to their max of around 85 and throw them into Park, making the speedo needle to abruptly swing back to zero and bounce a couple of times. Cue Beavis and Butthead laughter.
Stand back…..
It was…..
TEMPOS’!!!!!!
A whole flock of what seemed like police spec Tempos, with rubber floor mats, all vinyl interior and radio deletes and of course a chicken brake.
By the time I took drivers ed local dealers were no longer sponsoring drivers ed(I wonder why?) so the county owned the cars, though they varied from school to school, some had Tempos and others had Omnis and Reliants, sadly we didn’t have simulators, an older friend of mine said they were still used in the 70’s when he took drivers ed, we did have a car dashboard on the wall to show us what the controls were, it was a Citation dash!! It had 0 miles so it must have been donated from GM, like the savaged Chevette in the shop class.
“TEMPOS”…
My sympathy.
chevy nova automatic, i think. the high school supplied free lessons which were really just a formality so that our parents could qualify for an insurance discount.
my driver’s ed teacher screamed at me to “watch out for that kid.” i slammed on the brakes and looked desperately around for the kid that i hadn’t seen. when he pointed to the kids playing ball at the end of the block about 200 feet away, my jaw dropped. i had been coasting at about 10mph when he had screamed at me. i didn’t speak to him for the rest of the class and only acknowledged him enough for the rest of my lessons to not give him an excuse to fail me.
i was better off than my friend who told me that one of his instructors broke down and cried and confessed that he had once hit a pedestrian.
How many of us older ones remember the televised “National Drivers Tests” that aired occasionally on TV in the late 1960’s?
Those were interesting.
I do! Imagine what ratings that would get today.
I’m late to the party, but here goes 1973 Gran Torino in a baby blue color.
I can still smell the new interior of the car with a faint whiff of pipe tobacco from the instructor.
The instructor also happened to be one of my high school shop teachers that year.
After the first lesson ,he looked at me , smiled and said “you have been driving a while haven’t you?”
Ours were Torinos, too, probably a year or two later, because they were completely suffocated by emissions controls. They were refrigerator-white beaters that had reached their expiration date in the county motor pool.
We didn’t get much behind the wheel time, so I don’t have any specific memory beyond vinyl-clad bench seats and general suckage.
What I do remember are the Highway Safety Foundation films that made up the bulk of the Driver’s Ed curriculum (http://www.imdb.com/company/co0114945/). For some reason The Third Killer featuring Mr. Rellik (killer spelled backwards) was particularly memorable.
A 1974 Chevrolet Nova, with a six and (of course) automatic. Brake pedal for the instructor, who appeared (looks and voice) to be a dried-out drunk. I took it in the public school system of a Cleveland suburb I’ll not name; and we had three driver’s-ed cars with three road instructors.
The classroom instruction consisted of what later became the NSC’s DDD course, and a lot of gory films. Taught, of course, by the Phys Ed staff.
About the only lasting impression it left on me was an enduring hatred of GM sedans, and the Nova in particular. It really wasn’t that bad a car; but with its complete lack of character and the obnoxiousness of the road instructor…I can’t stomach any car that even slightly resembles it.
No driver’s ed in schools over here. In my state it was a multiple choice test to get your learner’s permit at 16, and another multiple choice test plus driving test to get your provisional licence at 18. I did a driving course at a facility in a nearby town in the school holidays after I got my learner’s permit, they had a Ford Laser & Falcon and I think a Nissan Pulsar, all 91 or so. The Falcon was rare in being a manual, and I can remember a fellow student changing from 4th into 3rd instead of 5th at 100km/h – oops, big compression lock-up!
That second simulator picture above was exactly the one we were using-There were a bunch of them in a trailer next to the gym. 1966 Plymouth Belvedere dash, column auto. There was also a 3-speed floor shift that folded out from the side of the seat for manual trans training.
There was a number of dealer-provided cars, each assigned to a specific instructor. All had the extra brake pedal.
Mine was a ’75 2 door Monarch with a rough running, stumbling and herky-jerky 302 that couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding. I remember the woman instructor not even realizing I had it floored during freeway merges.
I took driver’s ed at one of the local high schools. First, though you had to take a multiple choice test for your learner’s permit at an Ontario license bureau. It was pretty easy, and you could get the handbooks there or at most convenience stores. We had one night a week in class (no simulators, and usually one gory film per session) and one in-car session a week. I had already got used to driving my dad’s ’77 Buick Century with a 350, so it was kind of a letdown to get an ’81 Malibu with the V6/3 speed automatic combo. Tolerable around town, but scary on the highway. It rode and handled okay, but had absolutely no power. Give me a car with enough power to get out of its own way! I don’t think the driving instructor liked us very much, but he passed us anyway and 31 years later I’ve managed to stay (mostly) out of trouble. At this point I bike most of the time and rent a car when we need one. I’ve found that I notice bad drivers a lot more when I’m on my bike, and since I don’t drive as often as I used to I’m even more careful when I do get behind the wheel.
1977 Dodge Volare 4 door.
already 7 yrs old when I got in it —-1.5 million miles on the ODO & smelled like a combination of vagina & vomit. But that was baby sh*t when compared to having to deal w/ the HS football coach/Driver’s Ed. teacher Mr. Close (RIP) screaming in your ear from the passenger seat.
I suppose it’s no different from the crap Bart Starr put up w/ from Coach Lombardi, thou.
Didn’t have driver’s ed. Learned to drive a stick on my uncle’s 1953 two-bottom Ford tractor, and later on his Minnie Mo row crop. That thing could pull bodacious wheelies. I then sat in the front seat of my school bus in Mexico City, and listened, first in a 1948 International, and later in a 1961 Ford V8. By the time my dad bought a ’62 Mercedes 190 I taught both my father and mother how to drive a four-speed. That Mercedes could lay some sweet rubber, at least until my mother caught me patching out.
I drove mid 70’s Chryslers mainly midsizes and you’d get a different car most of the time as they had 5 or 6 that had been retired from regular service.
Before we went out on the actual road we did some time in the school bus parking area. They would set up a bunch of cones and we were allowed to take laps, 2 kids in the car and the teacher talking to us with a Mr. Microphone that broadcast on the FM band so the cars had the underdash FM converters. They had the extra brake so it was fun to stomp on it while your partner was driving. Of course we would often turn the radio to the rock station so we couldn’t hear the teacher. Since it was in the parking lot there were speed bumps. I still remember the instructor screaming through the tiny speaker “Slow down VanBuren you’re going to blow out the shocks” since I hit them a speed so I could catch up to the car in front of me. Once we did that a few time then we went out on roads after school.
The first time or two I went out on the road, our driver ed car was a refrigerator white ’75 Ventura sedan, as boring as you imagine it to be. But then the Pontiac dealer that supplied our cars at the time replaced it with a gorgeous ’75 LeMans Sport Coupe, like the one below but brown. I was signed up for road time the day it was dropped off. I think I drove it off the school grounds before the teacher did! It was absolutely brand new with 9 miles on the odometer. Nicely kitted out too with bucket seats and console shifter. I recall it as a very easy and confidence inspiring car to drive as a nervous rookie. I’d be happy to have one today.
How weird is this? I check in when I have a few moments and see something like this…
I grew up near Hubbard, OH. I lived there in the early 80’s after leaving Cleveland. Stiver Chevy is still in business. The West Middlesex school system is up the hill and across the Pennsylvania state line from Hubbard.
I learned to drive in a neighboring school district, Brookfield, OH. IIRC, our driver’s ed cars came from a Pennsylvania Chevy dealer, Bob Mayberry, in Sharon, PA.
Back in the day we had civilian duty 4 door 1978 Chevy Novas. The school district removed the wheel covers, I guess, in case one of us kids decided to hop a curb or something. The main thing I remember about the car is that it was a brown paint on the outside, but a beige pleather interior with AC that only seemed to cool the front of the car.
I was having way more fun with my dirt bike back then…
I’m surprised no-one mentioned Dad, Can I Borrow the Car which I remember along with Signal 30.
My first-ever time behind the wheel of a “real” car was when our Sunday School teacher took us camping on his farm one weekend and had an old MG and a dirt bike. Everyone was instructed on both and got to drive solo a bit. I was maybe 11 or so at the time.
I subsequently got a good bit of “stick time” in the back yard or out at our farmette on both our 1969 Ford F-100 or in our 1971 Vega (4 speed), which would later become my first car.
1978 was my Junior year at Winder-Barrow High School, so I signed up for Driver’s Ed – taught by the Phys. Ed. coaches like so many others of you experienced. We had a fleet of mostly brand-new cars, usually Fords, but occasionally a few other makes would show up for a week or two. Everything was automatic by that point. The parking lot for the football field was striped with road layouts which were supplemented by cones during driving class.
Dual instruction was handled by an older Chrysler product with dual brakes (but not dual steering). It was brown, the a/c didn’t work, and the steering had a huge hole in the middle so you looked like the captain of a barge tugboat as you wallowed the wheel back and forth to keep some semblance of straightness to your path. When the instructor perceived the noob driver wasn’t firing on all cylinders, he’d wait until the unsuspecting student pulled up to a stop sign and he’d quietly put his foot on the brake without saying anything and wait to see how long the student took to figure out why the car wouldn’t go.
Well one warm spring morning we walked out to the parking lot to find a straight line of cones spaced out at 50′ intervals, with a brand new Cutlass Supreme in pole position amongst the pool for that day. Lucky me, my name was called first, and Coach explained how to run the slalom with an admonition to keep my speed down. I pretty much ignored the last part, and with a reasonable amount of tire squealing, made it down the line without knocking a single cone over. Coach stopped me and said to go drive the rest of the course for a while, and when I got done, the line of cones was gone! (c:
I finished the training and eventually took my test in the Vega – only got yelled at once by the Trooper when I stopped right at the cross road at an intersection (instead of 10′ back at the stop sign).
Two weeks later, driving home in a light rain, a drunk driver lost control on a curve and sideswiped Dad and me (I was driving) in the Vega… I’ll save the rest of that story for another time.
Ah, drivers ed. The car was a ’69-’70 fuselage Plymouth Fury (like just about every government car in NJ at the time – did someone at Chrysler have some major dirt on a bunch of NJ politicians?). It mostly amounted to driving around town (and no experience driving around traffic circles! in NJ! in 1971!), but we did get a stint on a newly-opened section of I-295. I still remember George Masters’ advice for entering onto freeways. “Now, I’m not telling you to burn rubber on the entrance ramp, but dammit, give it enough gas to get going highway speed before you try to merge.” Good advice then and good advice now.
My high school had a deal with the local Ford dealer; they leased the district new cars every year for a token sum in exchange for sponsorship of the driver’s ed program. (“Courtesy of Roy O’Brien Ford, St. Clair Shores, MI.”) The car I mostly drove was a new ’78 Granada, light blue 4-door with radio delete and (I assume) the 200 six. The other cars had AM radios, and I imagine the instructor, who was also the shop teacher, would have had an aneurysm if anyone tuned the radio away from WJR.
The day we did freeway driving, it was in a yellow Fairmont with 4-banger and, of course, automatic. A lovely powertrain for merging, especially for the first time. The instructor actually told me to floor it! Other cars were an LTD II and full-size LTD (just imagine some little high school girl learning to drive in THAT), all 4-doors, all new ’78s. Not a bad way to go, I suppose.
I had the pleasure of being in one of the last drivers ed classes taught free in my public school district. Picture overcrowded classes of about 40 students in a non air conditioned high school in July 1995. Classes were 3 hours long, half watching inane videos and half idling around cones in the parking lot. Even with classes at 6, 9, 12, and 3 there was still a waiting list to get in, I was lucky, I got in. Being in Dearborn, MI the cars were of course Fords donated by the hometown company 7 Tempos and 1 Contour, I believe this was a preproduction, I don’t think these were available to the public yet. With the teacher to student ratio I believe I spent maybe 15 minutes total on the actual road not going on any road with a speed limit over 35. Worse yet at this time Michigan did not require a road test to get your full unrestricted license, just a quickie written test, and to have reached 16.
When I was growing up we had a summer cottage on a private dirt road, shared by 5 families. From the age of 14 or so most kids were allowed to drive the family cars back & forth the mile or so to the main road. Much gravel was rearranged once you were out of sight & earshot of home. So I guess I learned to drive mostly in a 1964 Rambler American – a surprisingly gutsy little car with a 232 six and a 3 speed automatic. More rarely, my father let me drive his car, a 65 Galaxie XL with the 390 V-8. Man, did that thing rattle on dirt roads. It was also a real challenge to get it turned around without ending up in a ditch – but it probably taught me good maneuvering & parking skills.
In Nova Scotia in the 1960’s, ‘driver’s ed’ was something you saw only on TV. As soon I was 16, I got my Learner’s license & pestered my parents to let me drive as much as possible. With my summers of ‘practice’, I got my actual licence about 2 months after my 16th birthday.
No drivers ed here I learnt in an Austin Gypsy then a landrover at 13 took my test 1 month after my 15th birthday in a Morris Minor full licence issued at 15 no restrictions I was a god
Being jealous of all the marvelous american Icons you drove, I got my drivers’ license in July 1993 with a simple Citroën ZX 1.9D, which is a car that has mostly vanished from our roads.
I also remember that while taking my classes, the C32 (then A16) motorway (from Barcelona to Sitges) had just been opened but my teacher insisted in using the old C245 clogged road.
First gen 4 cylinder Dodge minivan. Actually a good thing to start on, as you can see the corners easily, and it was gutless, so people had to get over any fear of stomping on it.
The highlight of “Ace Driving School” was a movie I can’t believe nobody mentioned already.
“MECHANIZED DEATH”
http://documentaryheaven.com/mechanized-death-%E2%80%93-legendary-driving-safety-film/
“Legendary ‘shock’ driving safety film featuring numerous scenes of mutilated cars and injured/dead people and a voice over lacking in compassion.”
I took driver’s ed in the summer of 1968. The car was a new light blue Impala, with a brake pedal on the passgenger side. We had the simulators, too.
We watched quite a few films. These really made quite an impact on me. The most notorious of these was “Signal 30”. It showed actual crash scenes with mutilated and dead people; very effective. Driving is serious business.
Wanna see it again?
http://archive.org/details/0869_Signal_30_07_00_59_00
In the L.A. city school system in 1964, we had a two-fer instruction sequence. First, the classroom only Drivers’ Ed, which was lecture and blood and gore films (which were mostly made in the ’40’s, and seemed antiquated even then). Second, the Aetna-sponsored Drivers’ Training, which was a long, long trailer equipped with the little mini-cars and the front projection driving films, then sessions behind the real wheel. We had two cars, a bare bones beater ’57 Ford Custom (which I had the luck of the draw to be assigned to), and a ’64 Studebaker Lark, I think it was. The old Ford had the additional brake pedal in the passenger footwell, where the instructor was ready to clomp down whenever we went astray. I can remember one girl doing something that required quick action by the instructor, and that extra brake pedal nearly went through the floor, throwing the rest of us in the back seat around like being in a washing machine (no seat belts in those days). I think she was too unnerved to continue that day. Beyond the Drivers’ Training instruction, I learned to drive in my father’s ’61 Ford Falcon, not unlike the featured model here (minus the Twilight Zone accoutrements, mind you).
Anybody still reading? Two 75 Dodge Dart 2 doors, slant sixes, one red w/ black top and one pastel blue w/ white top, both with dual controls. I learned to parallel park and drive in my mom’s 72 Estate Wagon. I read above about someone backing a Town and Country into a tree. I did it too, into a telephone pole, with the tail gate up and the window open.
The driving school I went to used late ’80s vintage Dodge Omnis, all of them in that horrible beige/brown color Chrysler used back then. It was years before I was able to parallel park a normal sized car. By the time I took Driver’s Ed in 1993, they were thoroughly thrashed and would diesel for about five minutes after you shut them down.
Summer of ’76. I’m a November birthday too. ’76 Pontiac Astre, and ’76 Granada. Both automatics with brake pedals for the instructor. The Granada supposedly had a 351, but didn’t have much power. The Astres were slow, rough and noisy. At the high school (suburban Maryland) with Phys. Ed. teachers who yelled a lot.
Brand spanking new 1957 Chevy, silver in color, with cardboard door panels.
Free at the high school. New York state.
Little comprehension at the time that these cars would somehow turn into “classics”.
Dark blue Citation with a broken driver’s seat adjuster. Your two choices were all the way back or all the way forward. At 5’4″, I had to settle for all the way forward…
Mine were 1992 Chevy Berrettas from the Sears driving school pool. I was not cool like the year before where they had brand new 3rd gen Camaros.
Although Dad taught me to drive in the family cars starting at age 8 with the ’69 Chevelle.
a blue 1974 dodge dart swinger .learned on the streets of brooklyn ny. if you could not parallel park you stayed home
DMan:
Biking on 395 twice a year…I envy you!
Actually, the Bishop car dealers have consolidated and expanded over the 40 years. Eastern Sierra was Ford-Lincoln-Mercury and added Mazda in the mid-late 70s. Virgil Oyler was Chevy-Olds-Cadillac-Datsun. Perry was Buick-Pontiac-GMC-AMC and added Toyota and Honda in the late 70s. Luther was Dodge-Chrysler-Plymouth, Economy was International Harvester-Jeep, and Bishop Volkswagen was…Volkswagen.
Oyler burned down in the late 70s, turned out to be arson and the subsequent investigation revealed massive fraud. All their franchises went to Perry, which suddenly had all of GM, Datsun, Toyota and Honda.
Economy folded around the time International discontinued the Scout, and Perry got the Jeep franchise.
Bishop VW went under in the early-mid 80s and nobody picked up that franchise.
And sometime in the last decade, Luther (which got Jeep after Chrysler bought it) closed its doors. You can’t buy a Chrysler product in town anymore.
My driver ed car – was a 1978 Chevy Nova.
No simulators used then (about 1979). Did see the classic accident movie, Red Asphalt, though.
1996 Oldsmobile Ciera sedan, Medium Adriatic Blue Metallic with blue cloth. And a second brake pedal on the passenger side. It drove rather nice, and was only a year or so old at the time. I took driver’s ed classes through a company during the summer, not through school.
I actually had two drivers ed cars when I took lessons, because they came in two sets of sessions, ones early in the year and ones later on in the year through the same course plan in the same school, and the instructor bought a new car.
In the early section my instructor had an ’05 Pontiac Sunfire which decided to short out it’s alternator one afternoon when I was out on the road. It was kind of funny, watching every single warning light come on over the course of 15 minutes. I remember having a hard time adjusting to that car after learning to drive in an ’85 Mercury Topaz that had a very heavy accelerator pedal. The Sunfire had a light one that I always forgot about and I’d spin the tires the first time I hit the gas.
During the second set we had a brand new 2010 Ford Focus, which was very similar to the Topaz, actually. Hard to see out of though, and ultimately boring, although the ABS test was quite fun, as I’d never used ABS before in a car. Sounded like someone running a wooden spoon up a giant coil spring.
A 2001-ish Pontiac Sunfire coupe. What a stupid car. Drove like 1982, terrible on-the-floor seating position and the lowest-bidder plastic interior creaked over every bump. Thing only had like 12,000 miles on it, too.
The state of Ohio required 12 hours of on-the-road training in that thing. Ugh.
Oddly enough, that was one of the “it” cars for cheerleader types I knew at the time.
Not long after I got my license, the local driving school acquired a new Mustang. Not a GT, but still.
Of course we cant talk about drivers ed without talking about drivers ed instructors, ourse was Coach T. All the patience and sympathy of a hardened 30 year Marine Corps drill instructor, without any of the warmth. Short, mustache, mesh baseball cap, mirrored sunglasses, the full regalia. I dont know how his clipboard would survive a semester, cause he was always throwing it and slamming it against the floor
I took Driver’s Ed in the early part of 1988 in Worcester, MA. At the time, IIRC, Massachusetts would let you get a learner’s permit at 16, a driver’s license at 16 ½ if you had taken driver’s ed, and a license without having taken driver’s ed at 17. I had just turned 17 when I took driver’s ed, however. If the preceding is correct, I don’t think I needed to take driver’s ed to get a license, but if that’s the case, I don’t remember why I took it. Maybe it was to get as insurance discount (as others have stated), or maybe my parents thought I needed the experience. I think there was a written test to get a learner’s permit, then a road test to get a license.
I took Driver’s Ed at a school called Safety First Driving School. My recollection is that some high schools offered driver’s ed at the school, while others didn’t. I think the Worcester public schools didn’t, while the public schools in some of the suburban towns did. I went to a Catholic high school with no access to any public school driver’s ed, so it was driving school for me. The course had classroom and road components; there were no simulators. As with others, I remember watching a bunch of movies, most of which seemed like they were pretty old; I remember the title “Mechanized Death”. I also remember watching a movie about how cars were built and how they worked which appeared to have been made in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s. I recall thinking that most current-day cars (in 1988) really weren’t built and didn’t work like the cars depicted in the movie.
All of my driving school road time was behind the wheel of an early ‘80s Chevy Malibu sedan. It was definitely an automatic, and I’m sure it was a V6. My parents also let me practice driving in my mom’s ’87 Plymouth Sundance. My dad’s vehicle at the time was a ’76 Ford Club Wagon, and they weren’t about to let me behind the wheel of that (my mom didn’t even like to drive it).
When it came time to take my road test, the person from the driving school showed up not with the Malibu, but with a Chevy Celebrity that I had never driven before. That may or may not have contributed to my failing the test. Scanning the posts above me, it looks like I’m only the second person here to ‘fess up to failing on their first try.
I couldn’t really tell you whether the different car played a role, because I don’t know exactly why I failed the test. Most people I’ve talked to over the years who failed on their first attempt were well aware that they had committed one or two egregious errors; these were typically pointed out on the spot, and in some cases the road test was terminated right then and there. In my case, the road test continued to its conclusion, I didn’t think I had done anything wrong, and nothing was said to me until the test was completed. At first, I thought I had passed. At that point, the person conducting the test said something to the effect of “I think you need more practice”. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was failing me, not just giving me some general advice. (This was all he said to me. I was never explicitly told “you failed” or “you didn’t pass”.) The person from the driving school then said something to the effect of “Sorry, better luck next time” and drove away, leaving me standing there outside the RMV office.
When I arrived home – I took the bus – my parents were not happy. On one hand, I think they found my story somewhat implausible. On the other, I think they were also upset that things really could have happened the way I described them. My mother actually called both the driving school and the registry, and managed to talk to the person who had conducted my road test. He confirmed my story but gave her a list of several things I had done wrong, none of which I remembered doing – which isn’t to say I didn’t do them – and none of which were pointed out to me during or after the test.
To this day I’m not sure what the deal was. Did the guy feel that I did no one major thing wrong (so he said nothing during the test and let it run to its conclusion) but looked sufficiently uncomfortable behind the wheel (remember that I was taking the test on a car I had never driven before) that he couldn’t in good conscience pass me, and then just made up a bunch of stuff to get my mother off the phone? Did I actually do all of that stuff, but he found no one thing worthy of pointing out, yet by the end of the test it had all added up to the point where he felt he had to fail me, but he still didn’t feel the need to tell me any of the things I had done wrong? Was it just his style to fail people without giving them any feedback as to what they did wrong? Did he have a quota to meet, and anything less than perfect on that day was going to get you failed? (FWIW, it was the end of the month.)
After some further practice with my parents – I had no further involvement with the driving school – I took the road test a second time, in the Sundance, and passed.
My Driver’s Ed car was a 1976 brown Ford Granada. Very mundane, automatic with a straight six. No extra Driver ED equipment besides an extra brake pedal on the passenger side. My instructor, Mr Trautwein, retired the year after I took the course. I doubt there was any connection between the two…
Like another commenter above, a blue 1974 Dodge Dart Swinger. Tow other students and I shared afternoons driving her for two weeks I believe, on the streets of uptown Toronto. Two brothers owned the driving school – Scotland Driving School, on St. Clair Av. They were contracted by Pro Drivers to provide in car instruction. The mornings they (Pro Drivers) taught us in a classroom. I think I kept my notebook from that class, if so, it’s in a box somewhere.
“West Middlesex High School Driver Ed Ford Falcon…Courtesy of Stiver Chevrolet-Oldsmobile.” I can hear the students complain, “That ancient Ford was terrible. When I get my license, I want a new car. I’ll go to Stiver’s and check out the new Vega or a 98 Regency….” It pays to advertise!