Back in August, we shared the research showing formal driver’s education measurably reduces crashes and tickets among new drivers, compared to teens who only log supervised hours with a parent. That data raises an obvious next question: what is a real driver’s ed course actually teaching that a well-meaning parent in the passenger seat isn’t?
We asked Maxwell Driving School, our Steps to Steering: 901 partner here in Memphis, to walk us through it.
A Structured Curriculum, Not Just Practice Hours
Maxwell’s program combines three distinct pieces: classroom instruction covering traffic laws, safety rules, and permit preparation, dedicated simulator training, and behind-the-wheel instruction with a certified instructor.
That structure matters. A parent teaching a teen to drive is almost always working from instinct, habits, and whatever they may remember from their own driving test. A certified course is working from a standardized curriculum, built specifically to cover the situations new drivers are statistically most likely to get wrong.
The Driving Simulator: Teaching What You Can’t Safely Practice in a Parking Lot
This is a good example of exactly the gap formal driver’s ed fills. No parent is going to intentionally put their teenager into dangerous situation on a real road to teach them how to react to road conditions. A simulator lets a student experience a scenario and build the right instinct, safely, before they ever encounter it for real.
Lauren Cook, an instructor at Maxwell Driving School told me: “Driving simulators give new drivers an opportunity to build skills and confidence in a controlled environment before they have to manage those same demands behind the wheel. Students can practice vehicle control, maneuvering, decision-making, and responding to realistic driving situations without the risk of an actual crash. It gives us another way to prepare students for the road while meeting them at their current skill level.”
Certified Instruction, Tracked Progress
Maxwell is a Tennessee state certified driving school, accredited through the state’s Cooperative Driver Testing Program, which means their instructors can administer the official road test directly for eligible students. This allows students to complete their evaluation where they are more comfortable and with the instructors they already know.
Maxwell’s Differential Driving Program is specifically designed for autistic and other neurodivergent students. The class is made to let students with learning differences learn in smaller classroom settings, simulator training and additional behind the wheel instruction, so they can spend more time building the skills at their own pace. The goal isn’t to lower expectations, but to adjust how students are taught to produce the best outcomes possible.
How this fits with Steps to Steering: 901
This is the exact kind of instruction our Driver’s Ed Scholarship Program, Steps to Steering: 901, is built to make accessible. It’s not just about getting Memphis and Shelby County students behind the wheel for a few practice hours. It’s about giving them a full, structured course: classroom fundamentals, driving simulation, certified in-car instruction, and a real evaluation of their readiness before they’re on the road on their own.
Cost is often what keeps a family from choosing a program like Maxwell’s over informal parent-taught practice. Steps to Steering: 901 exists to close that gap, so a student’s access to this level of training isn’t determined by their family’s budget.
The Takeaway
The research we shared in August told us formal driver’s ed works. This is a look at why. It’s not one thing, it’s a combination of structured teaching, realistic hazard simulation, and certified evaluation that’s genuinely difficult to reproduce in a family car, no matter how careful or well intentioned the parent behind the wheel might be.
If you know a Memphis or Shelby County family with a teen approaching driving age, this is a good moment to point them to our scholarship application at: Steps to Steering:901. And if you’re able to support the scholarship fund, you’re directly funding the kind of instruction described here for a student who might not otherwise have access to it. If you’d like to fund our scholarship program visit here: Donate to William’s Walk.
Learn more about William’s Walk and Steps to Steering: 901 at williams-walk.com. For more information about Maxwell Driving School visit maxwelldriving.com.