State officials announced Monday that they are turning to technology – specifically an app – to help parents track the 50 hours they must spend supervising young drivers working toward getting their license.
Previously, parents or other legal guardians could just sign a form attesting they’d spent the 50 hours of supervised driving with their teen or young adult. But a new state rule requires them to actually log the dates and times they spent on the road with the new driver.
The Road Ready Ohio app is meant to make that process easier by tracking drive time and then helping users automatically fill out the driving log when they’ve completed the 50 hours. The app formats the log as a PDF, which then can be attached to the paperwork new drivers submit to the BMV when they apply for their license.
Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday he hopes the new logging requirement, along with the app, will result in more parents actually spending the time supervising their learning drivers instead of simply saying they did it.
“I think if someone wants to game the system, they can always game the system. There’s no doubt about that,” DeWine said. “But I just think this brings a sense of discipline, and I think you will see an increase in the number of hours they are actually doing.”
Ohio has raised the mandatory driver’s education age limit
The state launched the new driver’s ed app ahead of a new state law that takes effect on Tuesday requiring Ohioans 20 and younger to go through driver’s ed before getting their driver’s licenses.
Previously, the cut-off age was 18.
The expanded driver’s ed requirements are part of a broader initiative from DeWine to tighten state driving laws in an effort to reduce traffic fatalities. Road safety is a pet issue for DeWine, whose 22-year-old daughter was killed in a car crash in 1983.
The higher age limit follows state-funded research that found drivers who complete driver’s ed were less likely to be involved in serious crashes. Before, officials said, many teens would just wait until they turned 18 to avoid the cost and trouble of attending driving school.
DeWine also asked Republican state lawmakers to require public high schools to offer in-school driver’s education. This would have been a reversal of the state’s longstanding policy to have most driver’s ed provided by private companies, which advocates have said has led to gaps in affordability and access. But lawmakers ended up rejecting expanded school-based driver’s ed while keeping the higher cut-off age that the governor requested.
Even before the new requirement that will send more young drivers into driver’s education, state officials and driver’s education operators complained there aren’t enough providers, leading to waitlists and a shortage of local options in some places, particularly in rural areas.
DeWine said Monday he hopes driving school operators will offer more classes in response to the increased demand the new law will generate.
State officials on Monday said they’ve recently taken steps to try to encourage more people to become certified driving instructors. Those efforts include offering a $1,500 cash bonus to new instructors who complete training and stay on the job for three months.
Ohio’s driver’s ed requirements include the 50 hours of supervised driving, including 10 hours of nighttime driving, eight hours of classroom instruction and a final test.
The governor suggested Monday he would require everyone regardless of age to complete driver’s ed if he could.
“I’ll take what I can get,” DeWine said. “It’s an improvement.”
More on the Road Ready Ohio app
The app cost about $190,000 to develop, according to state officials. The app developer, J.F. Griffin, has produced a similar app for other states, although the Ohio version will have exclusive features that give users instant feedback on their driving. Insurance companies offer similar apps that track drivers’ habits and make those deemed to be safe drivers eligible for lower rates.
State officials said the app has privacy protections that restrict how the app developer can use user data.
DeWine expressed interest on Monday in having the app directly share driving log data with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles – bypassing the need for the paper form – although he said this would require a law change.
