Loopy WI DMV plan makes loopy Walker/WI sense
Given that the State of Wisconsin under Scott Walker which is in thrall to the road-builders a) has no comprehensive transportation plan statewide except a billion-dollar debt-laden highway expansion program, b) has no financing plan to pay for highway expansion and/or repairs to what we already have c) has boosted fatality-inducing speed limits despite warnings from experts, d) has allowed the roads and bridges to deteriorate to fourth-worst in the nation, e) already killed off regional transit authorities, f) is starving transit and cutting urban bus connections to suburban jobs...it makes perfect sense in that rudderless, policy-free special-interest driven scenario that Wisconsin is considering giving licenses to new drivers without requiring them to take a road test.
When, in fact, Wisconsin's novice drivers should definitely have to take a road test, if only to learn how to dodge the potholes without hitting
the additional motorists headed for far-from-the-city-jobs without a transit connection through orange-barrel zones, lane-changes, zipper merges and onduced congestion artificially extended for extra years because Walker and the Legislature needed to push out construction schedules in the face of falling demand from car-averse millennial and retirees who choose to no longer drive.
When, in fact, Wisconsin's novice drivers should definitely have to take a road test, if only to learn how to dodge the potholes without hitting
the additional motorists headed for far-from-the-city-jobs without a transit connection through orange-barrel zones, lane-changes, zipper merges and onduced congestion artificially extended for extra years because Walker and the Legislature needed to push out construction schedules in the face of falling demand from car-averse millennial and retirees who choose to no longer drive.
3 comments:
Outsourcing driver's education is just one more way the state is attempting to shrink government, except that they are not shrinking anything. I would like to know why the High School drivers ed is being excluded. Those programs have been functioning for decades and there has not been any major problems reported with them, plus we are already paying for them. Or, once this is implemented do they plan to close the school programs to force kids to take the private school lessons and grow the diver school businesses? Since the only ones being considered for this change is private driving schools, is this yet one more pay for play action by our reps in state government. Or, is this one more thing in the ALEC book of legislation that they are trying to implement?
Outsourcing drivers ed goes back to at least the late 1990s and did not begin nor accelerated under Gov. Jim Doyle. Providing cars to accommodate every student (even in groups of 4), insurance, and the fact that few really want to spend their evenings and Saturday's in a carload of new teen drivers did this in and it has little or nothing to do with ALEC.
I point this out, because we cannot protect public education if we do not accurately identify the challenges. In the grand picture, bringing back drivers ed and behind-the-wheels is simply not going to happen in school districts that are finding it difficult-to-impossible to recruit new teachers and do not have the funding to provide the student services and support that they currently have.
Please look at accident rates for new drivers in their teens and then tell me why it is so important that 16-year olds immediately get drivers licenses and then their own car?
Driver's ed was eliminated in Madison schools over ten years ago. Someone else pointed out that it impacts poor students most as they cannot afford private lessons and don't have access to cars, so it limits their employment opportunities. Thanks to Real I'D we also have more unlicensed and uninsured drivers who are undocumented.
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