It is very hard to imagine a world without driving tests. In the year or so I've been working on this story, the most common reaction I get when I tell people about it is, "So, what, anyone can drive?" As if that's not the case already.We like to believe the licensing process stops dangerous drivers from taking the road. If they drive badly, they don't get a license. If they don't have a license, they can't drive. But that simply isn't true.In fact, the driving test is one of the lowest-stakes tests you will ever take in your life for the very simple reason that you can retake it as often as you like until you pass. California has some of the strictest rules here, limiting people to three retakes. But even if a person fails all three, it just means they have to start the process and pay the fees again. In any state, a person can also re-take it anywhere they like. They can venue-shop if they didn't like the first DMV they took it at. They can go to the suburbs or the exurbs or a rural area.I failed my first two. I understand why I failed the first one. Legit have no clue what I did wrong the second time, to this day. -Ryan O'Hanlon, Brentwood, Long Island DMV. Licensed driver since 2005
To be sure, the concept of a driving test makes intuitive sense. So it was perfectly reasonable that, as the dangers of widespread vehicle use became painfully clear in the 1920s, many cities and states moved to implement some form of driver testing.I learned to drive as an adult woman (age 29), not a teen, and took a driving test in the Bronx…I failed on parallel parking (apparently if your wheel hits the curb it's an instant fail…) The guy told me I 'wasn't safe' as a driver and was unbelievably condescending…I went to schedule another test and this time got one in New Rochelle about three weeks later. The suburbs were a whole new world…passed easily." -Torie A., licensed driver since 2014
Beyond proving people knew how to drive, the test was also designed to weed out dangerous drivers, a purpose we still ascribe to the driving test today. According to automotive historian Lee Vinsel and author of one of the only books about the history of automotive regulations, this was based on a burgeoning field of social science that believed people could be categorized by psychological tests. The central concept for driving tests was that certain people were accident prone, and by preventing them from getting a driver's license, roads would be safer.During the 1920s, the National Research Council pumped money into programs designed to identify such accident-prone people. But after psychologists engaged in this research started engaging in blatantly profiteering behavior like patenting psychological testing instruments and taking lucrative consulting contracts with insurance companies, the NRC began to suspect this was all an elaborate scam.Mine was 15 years ago in Old Saybrook, CT, but I still remember thinking, "boy, that was easy," after I took it. I remember the route, and just plotted it on Google Maps. It was 5 miles, and took about 10 minutes, with short sections on Route 1, a busy commercial route, and I-95. Mostly right turns, and just a few stoplights. -Christopher Kennedy
This attitude is a perfect example of how safe driving transitioned in the minds of Americans from being a psychological trait to a matter of training and education. The examiner concludes by relaying a message to young Mason who flunked the test. "You tell him that I know he knows how to drive. But when he comes back and shows me that he knows how not to drive, I'll pass him."“In other words,” I said, "they’re all right mechanically but below par mentally?”
“Not mentally,” corrected the examiner, “psychologically — or perhaps it is sociologically; I don't know. They’ve just got to master their own behavior as well as they’ve mastered their car's, and it seems to me that this matter of attitude is the key to the whole traffic problem. It goes back to instruction, naturally. And I don’t mind saying that if young Mason had learned to drive in one of the high-school courses sponsored by the A. A. A. and other organizations, he’d have his license now."
"I made some goofs on my test but still managed to pass…I hit the curb while parallel parking and made a left turn onto Sunrise Highway after the other left-turning car instead of before." -Jason Gers. Took the test in Freeport, LI. Licensed driver since the mid-1990s
Still, recognizing the driving test is a waste of time, money, and energy is one thing. Coming up with a sensible replacement that balances safety concerns with the economic reality that pretty much everyone needs to drive to be a functioning adult in the U.S. is another.It is very hard to reconcile these conflicting goals. In the U.S., to withhold a driver's license from someone—or, for that matter, revoke it—makes it difficult for them to be a functioning member of society. I personally do not believe failing to pay a fine or even texting while driving should condemn someone to unemployability because they cannot reliably get to and from their jobs. But, on the other hand, what's the point of a driving test if everyone needs a driver's license? The U.S.'s auto dependency is the strongest barrier to a better licensing process, which itself is the strongest barrier to a comprehensive road safety program. Often when reporting this story, I'd hear an anecdote or see a study about the driving test in other countries. Some, like the UK and Japan, are much harder. Others, like in Russia or much of the global south, are some mixture of perfunctory or outright corrupt. People often like to assume these differences are terribly meaningful. Obviously, they say, driving in Japan is safer because the driving test is so hard! There might be some truth to that, but it's hard to know if that's because of the driving test or if the driving tests reflect cultural attitudes towards driving that manifest in other ways. In other words, countries that take road safety seriously, from road design to investing heavily in public transit and so on, might also be more likely to have tough driving tests. Or perhaps having all those viable alternatives to driving to begin with make those societies view driving more as a privilege than a right, which then informs their road safety policies. What is certain is it would be unfair and counterproductive to both have a strict licensing program rigorously enforced and no real alternative for getting around.This leaves the U.S. somewhere between a rock and a hard place. Our farce of a driving license system reflects the choices our country has made to structure itself around the automobile. It's why getting a license is such a huge deal for teenagers, and why the legal driving age crept downwards until states introduced graduated drivers licenses in recent decades, one of the few license-related interventions that actually works. With graduated licenses, teen drivers are only allowed to drive at certain times or under certain conditions while they gain experience. Even after they pass their driving test, there are still limitations until they've been driving for a certain amount of time or turn 18. It's not a perfect system, but it is one that de-emphasizes an all-or-nothing approach to driving rights around a bullshit test in favor of scientifically-backed rules and restrictions that ease over time.A better system is likely one that embraces the lessons of GDLs, jettisons the idea of a one-size-fits-all test to prove competency, and instead demands ongoing responsibility and care from drivers throughout their entire driving lives. Here, I envision a system that more readily suspends licenses for increasing durations for repeated dangerous traffic violations like speeding or running red lights. And fines, if they continue to exist, ought to be indexed to the driver's ability to pay like they are in much of Scandinavia.But I am not naive about the prospects of that happening here. Namely, they are zero. Even in New York City, one of the few places in the U.S. people can live productive lives without a license, holding dangerous drivers accountable for their actions is a quixotic quest, whether they kill a pedestrian or cyclist or simply drive irresponsibly as a matter of course. For example, a program that would force people with 15 speed camera or five red light tickets in a 12-month period—a tiny fraction of the population considering the high bar for recklessness—merely to attend a driver safety training was barely passed, defunded during COVID, and is still a much-weakened program from what was initially proposed. Eight states have outright banned red light and speed cameras, which would be critical enforcement tools to have fair and equitable traffic enforcement. The U.S. is locked into an unhealthy system where driving is both one of the leading causes of injury and death and also an economic and social necessity. It is an irrational and unsustainable system, both economically and environmentally. So perhaps it is no surprise at all that the driving test is such a disaster. It is just one small part of a disastrous system, with no real prospects on the horizon for significant reform. It is, in that way, a familiar problem.It was a joke. All I remember having to do is drive around the block and park in a parking lot. The DMV employee was talking on her cell phone and not paying any attention. -Rebecca Hahn, New Orleans. Licensed driver since 2002