MILWAUKEE — The end of the year marks a big change for high school driver’s education students.
Wisconsin will no longer be one of just four states that allow 16 and 17-year-olds to waive their road test at the DMV before getting a license.
Wisconsin DOT data shows a vast majority of teens coming out of driver’s ed got the waiver with their parents’ permission.
169,000 students bypassed the test since May of 2020. A driver’s ed instructor says the change is long overdue.
Like most high school students in recent years, Kailynn Rufus was eager to go straight from driver’s ed to getting her license. She says her parents didn’t mind either.
“{My mom} said, ‘well less driving you to the driver’s test and less having to have you fail and you not being able to drive yourself to school or drive your sister to school,’” she said.
Rufus says she exceeded the increased threshold of 50 hours behind the wheel with her parents in order to skip the DMV road test. The owner of a Milwaukee driver education program says no one other than parents actually verifies whether that happens.
"I’ve had students where we get to their practice road test and there’s pages of feedback that I can give them and their parent goes, well we’re waiving it and there’s nothing I can do or anyone else can do to stop their right from doing that,” Jeremy Cain said.
Cain owns Crash Course Driver Education Center. He says 85 percent of his students over the last three years ended up bypassing their road test.
“Are we tracking these students long term to see what are the impacts to our community?” he questioned.
WisDOT keeps that data and used it as the main reason why it wanted to make the road test waiver pilot program permanent. It found those who waived the test ended up getting slightly fewer citations and they caused slightly fewer crashes than those who took the test.
Despite the data, the Wisconsin Legislature refused to act on WisDOT’s wishes, hence why the program is ending December 31.
“Do you think the roads will be safer with this road test being mandatory again?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
“Oh, 100 percent,” Cain replied. “Throughout the last three years, there’s a handful of students I can think of right now who have a driver’s license where at the time of their practice road test with us, that shouldn’t have even been on the table and unfortunately it was.”
While Rufus says she felt ready to get behind the wheel, she also thinks the change in policy is needed to make sure everyone who gets a license shows they can safely operate their vehicle and share the road with others.
“I think it’s good because some kids nowadays just don’t pay attention enough,” she said.
WisDOT says it’s been planning for an increase demand in road tests and therefore, there is no backlog in the coming weeks. Data obtained by TMJ4 shows 76 percent of the appointments over the next four weeks are already claimed. WisDOT says nearly half of appointments are available over the next eight weeks.
If you would like to schedule a road test appointment, click here.
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