Baby, you can't drive my car

A St. Paul Pioneer Press investigation found that driving instructors in Minnesota have similar or slightly worse traffic violation records compared to the general population, despite expectations that they would be better drivers. The reporter compiled data from state databases and commercial driving school records to compare instructor violations against the broader driving population.

Do instructors practice what they preach?

Here's a scary thought: Driving teachers apparently teach what they know. Dan Browning of the St. Paul Pioneer Press found out what they know is nothing special. They drive as bad as the rest of us.

Browning used several state drivers databases. In addition to the driving records from the general population which contained about 3.8 million records - Browning used driving records for the 400 or so public school and commercial driving instructors in Minnesota.

"The public schools didn't have the data and the commercial school instructor data was on rolodex cards," he said.

Browning got the paper records for all instructors, and compiled them into a database. Some instructors worked at more than one school, so he checked for double entries. On his 486 with a gigabyte hard drive, he used FoxPro and Excel to cull through the data.

Browning compared instructor violations against the general driving population. "We found they were slightly more likely to have two, three, or four tickets. It was not statistically significant, but we took it seriously because you expect driving instructors to be better drivers," he said. Also, driving teachers can't teach after a certain number of tickets a year.

Driving tips

The Pioneer Press started looking into driving instructors because an editor was curious after it turned out a child molester in the community had owned a driving school.

For those considering such a story, Browning suggested that reporters talk with driver education associations.

He also recommended: "You can do the story with or without the driving records of everybody in the state you can just get them for the driving instructors. The computer file doesn't show warning letters, but the certified paper copy would."

Renita Coleman can be reached at (314) 642-6765, or send e-mail to c673328@showme.missouri.edu