PROSSER, Wash. –
It’s been hard for some to find extra funds to be able to either enroll themselves or their 15-year-olds in driving schools.
Recently there’ve been more and more crashes involving younger drivers in rural areas as well as our area.
Representatives from the Washington Department of Licensing say one of the reasons maybe is that driver’s education is expensive for low-income families in rural communities.
Rural areas such as Prosser don’t have driving schools around them.
Doug Fassler the Prosser High School traffic safety coordinator said their closest driving school is in Sunnyside.
Even though there is less traffic in rural areas, roads are just as dangerous as crowded highways.
Prosser is one of those communities that decided to take matters into their own hands.
“Prosser High School we have the ability to do drivers education during the course of our day. We teach the course prior to school starting in the morning,” said Fassler.
Fassler has been teaching driver’s ed at Prosser High School since 1990.
The school offers the class at a price of $350 as opposed to private driving schools.
I looked up seven different private driving schools from around our area and the costs of the driving courses range anywhere between $475 to $550.
Rob Weiman is a communications consultant for the Washington DOL and said the schools set their own fees.
While the WA DOL can’t do anything about the prices set by the driving schools, he says there is a bill being looked at in the 2023 Washington legislative session.
“Senate bill 5430 would provide vouchers to low-income novice drivers to cover the cost of driving schools to teach drivers the rules of the road,” said Weiman.
The goal is to make driving classes easy for everyone to afford while also making it safer for the rest of the communities around the state.
According to the Washington State Legislature website, the bill is scheduled for a public hearing on January 31st.
The drivers education course isn’t part of the Prosser High School curriculum.
The school district works with the DOL with this program.
The program at Prosser High School is a nine-week class totaling 45 hours of class instruction along with six hours of driving instruction with each student.
The students go from getting a permit in the class to getting their drivers license if they pass the class.
