Elements of driver education programs used throughout the United States need to be re-evaluated, the National Transportation Safety Board has found.

In a recent report, NTSB officials stated that various approaches to driver education are used in the United States and Europe, but no systematic evaluation has been conducted to determine which components are effective in teaching safe driving skill. Consequently, there is little guidance for developing appropriate curriculum or establishing requirements for novice driver education.

“Young people are dying because nobody has ever seriously studied how best to provide appropriate and effective driver education. It’s time to get serious about this issue,” NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker said, acknowledging that automobile crashes are the leading cause of death among 15- to 20-year-olds.

NTSB made recommendations to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to review current driver education training programs and determine the instructional tools, training methods and curricula that are consistent with the identified best teaching methodologies and then implement those best practices into a model driver education training curriculum.

The board also determined that the 56-year-old formula of 30 hours of classroom training followed by six hours of behind-the-wheel training was established arbitrarily and is probably inadequate to teach teenagers the skills necessary to drive safely on today’s roadways.

Driver training must take into account research results that show how teenagers learn and the behavioral environment in which teenagers typically function, the report stated.

As a result, the board recommended that the U.S Department of Education and NHTSA work together to determine the optimum sequencing, in conjunction with graduated driver licensing qualifications, for educating teenagers on safe driving skills both in the classroom and behind the wheel.