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MANY PARENTS REMAIN SHOCKINGLY CLUE less about the magnitude of the risk for teen drivers. " They give in much too easily to pressure from teens to obtain a driver's license on or near their 16th birthday. Likewise, many allow their kids to breeze through the perfunctory steps that pass for driving instruction in this country, then blithely hand over the keys to the family vehicle, or buy one for their young driver right away-often something flashy, top-heavy or too powerful.

What is so puzzling is how strongly this situation counters typical parental behavior for the first 16 years of a child's life. During that time parents eagerly spring for all kinds of instruction: piano lessons, dancing lessons, skating lessons and so forth. They cart the kids endlessly back and forth to such sessions, spending hundreds of hours and lots of money.

No parent would pay for only six piano lessons and then expect a child to perform at a concert. And no parent would send a child to six swimming lessons then demand a championship atWetic performance.

So why is it, when it counts the most-when it becomes a matter of life and death-that so many parents shrink from their responsibility to instruct, supervise and protect their children? Why do they settle for only six hours of driver training behind the wheel?

Most states have at least imposed graduated licensing programs, which strengthen some of the requirements for beginning drivers-and have resulted in decreased fatality rates-but those laws go only so far.

Given the situation and the dangers, responsible parents have no choice. They must do for their beginning drivers what they have done during earlier phases of their children's development. They must assume responsibility to supervise a safe and complete driving instruction program.

TRADITIONAL HlGH SCHOOL driver education does not work. " The National Safety Council, in its 2004 Teen Driver: A Family Guide
to Teen Driving Safety, even asserts the failure is global. That's not the worst of it though. This information is anything but new. At least as far back as 1962, Edward A. Tenney's book, The Highway Jungle, told "The Story of the Hoax in Our Schools That Is Putting Death at the WheeL"

An honest, careful analysis of traditional driver ed can lead to only one conclusion: It doesn't teach driving, let alone good driving. Its faults are fundamental and pervasive. The damage it causes is crippling and permanent. Its philosophy, psychology, content and method are wrong.

Philosophy: The idea behind traditional driver education is to get teenagers driver's licenses and to teach them good citizen- . ship as defined by driver education. Driver ed proponents believe driving is developmental (like walking and talking). Thus little actual coaching is given in the carit's not about mastering a new skill, but about adopting a defensive posture. It's pretty much up to the student to learn to drive by himself while the teacher figuratively holds his hand. Classroom instruction amounts to preaching and attempting to scare the students into using "mature judgment" without giving them the knowledge necessary to do so.

Psychology: A teenager's primary job is becoming an adult. They labor tirelessly to stop mindlessly obeying orders. They are being forced by nature itself to achieve control in their own lives. Driving equals control, and teens understand that at the deepest level. Driver ed, instead of using this powerful motivation, does everything it can to kill it. It harangues endlessly about yielding and obeying and never encourages competence in the task of control. Is it any wonder kids are not receptive?

Content: Every generation calls driver ed a Mickey Mouse course. Enough said.

Method: Traditional driver ed employs tricks and gimmicks to simulate skill and understanding. The initial introduction to driving should never be done with simulators. Kids need to feel a car's reaction to their inputs. Parking-lot driving ranges virtually ensure a lifelong habit of aiming and scanning much too near the front of the car-where you can see the cones or lines on the pavement. Instructional time behind the wheel is absurdly brief.

Traditional driver ed produces kids who can't drive but think they can because they have "earned" their licenses. Many crash. Some die. Others mutilate and kill. Appalled adults ask why and request reform. To date, that reform consists of Graduated Driver Licensing.

Years ago a student of mine told me Stirling Moss once said practice does make perfect, but only if one practices the right things. Well, look around at what passes for driving. The people perfonning those atrocities include the parents charged by GDL with responsibility for teaching their teens to drive. Obviously, GDL alone is not the magic bullet.

In the end, it seems clear the people at the top of the driver ed establishment don't love driving. If they did, they could not help but to teach it well.

These problems are not insoluble. Proper philosophy, psychology, content and method exist. Driver ed nonsense can be replaced with programs that apprentice teens to skilled and experienced drivers who can lead them to mastery. They'll find it enjoyable and rewarding to do so, and it will be safer for us all on the roads.

Do the best you can for your kids, including high-performance driving schools if feasible. Spread the truth, expose the irrational, set good examples, and keep intolerable pressure on those who can effect the radical changes needed to replace driver ed with real education for driving .•

Kenneth L. Zuber is the author of Joyriding: A Practical Manual for Learning the Fundamentals of Masterful Driving. Available from www.motorists.org