All Mississippi high schools are now required to offer driver’s education as the state gets ready to require all first-time driver’s license applicants to complete a driver’s education program. The requirement under Senate Bill 2695 states that school districts “shall establish and maintain driver education and training programs for pupils.”
“While it’s not required for the student to graduate, it is required for the school to offer it,” Mississippi Department of Education Office of Safe and Orderly Schools Director Brian McGairty told the Mississippi Free Press on May 19.
Mississippi consistently ranks among the most dangerous states for drivers. Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell offered his support for the change in a May social media post.
“Protecting our teen drivers and improving roadway safety has always been a top priority for me,” Tindell said in a Facebook video.
Tindell noted that the courses will include written exams and road tests. The legislation also requires the courses to include instruction on distracted driving and impaired driving. Students will also learn how drivers and passengers should respond when pulled over by law enforcement. Students are not required to hold a driver’s permit to take the course and may begin the instruction as young as age 14.
“Better trained drivers make for safer roadways and help save lives,” Tindell said
Starting when the law took effect on July 1, people applying for a hardship license must now complete driver’s education under an instructor certified by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety or the Mississippi Department of Education.
Compliance Takes Money and Instructors
The new law left some school districts scrambling to ensure they could meet the mandate. McGairty said that MDE was working to ensure all school districts understood the mandate and how to comply. Although schools are required to offer the course, it is not required for graduation.
“We’ve done a little bit of communication rollouts through superintendent listservs, along with regional meetings that our higher leadership attends and participates in, where they engage with superintendents, providing them those updates and that guidance,” McGairty said.
MDE will roll out a fresh, revised curriculum this fall. The new lessons still contain much of the old material but will now include units that cover rules of the road, discuss law enforcement interactions and address other potential distracted driving scenarios that the student could be confronted with once they’re licensed. The Mississippi Highway Patrol is also working with schools through its public affairs division to bring a highway patrolman to teach one component of that roadside interaction in every course.
“(The goal is to) actually have someone in the classroom from a law enforcement perspective that can speak to the kiddos and answer any questions,” McGairty said. “And hopefully show a friendlier side of what an interaction will look like, so that the first time that they encounter them, whether it be having to get out of the way because of an emergency or whether it be an actual one-on-one traffic stop, they will be prepared and know what to expect.”
However, there are problems.
McGairty said that the State Department of Education began requesting funding to help schools prepare and to provide the technology, teachers, classrooms and materials, and to ensure that every student in a particular school year has the ability to take the class if needed. MDE has requested a budget of approximately $30 million, and McGairty said the majority of that money is not for teacher salaries or even classroom materials, but rather for driver education simulators.
“Unfortunately, those requests have yet to be funded, and it’s something that our legislative liaison and our (Mississippi Department of Education) leadership will continue to work with (the Department of Public Safety) to request that funding going into the 2027 year as well,” McGairty said.
Simply put, McGairty said some students who need the course may have to find another way to take it.
“If you follow the law, the law just requires them to offer it,” he said. “So technically, if a high school offered one course of it to 21 kids, that’s a very small amount versus offering it to all 32,000 sophomores that will start in 26 to 27 (school year).”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that each student have 30 hours of classroom instruction and no fewer than six hours behind the wheel. McGairty said driver simulators are one tool available to schools.
“In order to get each student six hours behind the wheel within a crunch semester period with even just 20 kids, you’re not going to meet those numbers unless you sub out that time behind the wheel with simulation, which our curriculum allows for,” he said.
However, those simulators are no longer the converted semitrucks that could hold a dozen students at a time. The modern versions are console stations or desktop units that may include multiple screens, foot pedals and wheels. They are also costly.
“We actually did a request for information, just to have a pulse on what we’d be looking at per unit, and those numbers were astounding,” McGairty said. “I don’t have the figures in front of me, but it was, it was north of $10,000 per unit. It’s not like buying a Chromebook for 150 bucks or a MacBook. It’s a very expensive piece of technology, but without that technology, it’s going to be very difficult to really offer more than one or two classes a year with a limited number of instructors.”
To help address the shortage of instructors, the Mississippi Department of Education has also created an alternative pathway to earn the driver’s education teacher certification. Before, educators who wanted to teach drivers had to attend an expensive university program. Through the new alternate pathway, teachers who already hold a five-year license can go through a 40-hour-a-week course offered through the Department of Public Safety and receive that same endorsement.
Golden Triangle Driving Academy owner and founder Betty Harris recently attended the Mississippi Department of Public Safety Driver Education instructor’s course and is now a certified driver’s education instructor for the state. She also has three other certified instructors. Her private driving academy began offering driver’s education courses in March.
“We’re going to (also offer) online services for convenience,” Harris said. “We’re going to provide both services, in-person and online learning for the instructional part of the course.”
“We also provide the vehicles,” she continued. “All of our vehicles are equipped with the safety brake. All instructors are certified driver education instructors.”
Harris said she has already seen a number of new drivers who are preparing to earn the hardship license.
“Parents are really trying to get this in so life will be a little better and smoother for them in this upcoming school year,” she told the Mississippi Free Press on May 28. “Everybody’s trying to get in and get this done because once they have taken the program, they can apply for the hardship license.”
Harris noted that the new requirement, taking effect on July 1, 2027, will apply not only to teenage drivers but also to adult drivers seeking their first Mississippi driver’s license. Those adult drivers will not have access to high school driver’s education courses.
“I worked in law enforcement before and it wasn’t uncommon just out on traffic stops and other things early in my career that you’d run across adults that had never had a driver’s license at the age of maybe 19 or 21,” McGairty told the Mississippi Free Press. “Maybe they committed a crime early in life that resulted in prison time and they come out and the first thing they’re usually required to do is go get an ID, and most of them a license. Well, now even that individual now is responsible for (the) course so it does open up kind of the idea of what options are there for those that cannot successfully obtain it, whether it be from an education or whether it be from third party.”
Mississippi Driver Accidents on the Rise
In his video, Tindell said that Mississippi has been first or second in the nation in teenage fatalities for the last 30 years.
“That’s unacceptable,” Tindell said in the post.
A Consumer Affairs analysis of the most recent fatal crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ranked Mississippi ninth nationally for the worst drivers across all ages. The state reported 730 total traffic deaths statewide. Millennials, who emerged as the highest-risk group, accounted for 267 fatal crashes or 37% of the state’s total. Of the fatal crashes, 108 involved dangerous or improper driving behaviors, 50 involved speeding, 18 involved drivers with positive blood alcohol concentration and 26 involved driving under the influence.
“What stood out most in Mississippi’s data was how consistently millennials appeared across several fatal crash categories,” Consumer Affairs Public Relations and Outreach Manager Dayna Edens told the Mississippi Free Press on May 7. “They recorded the highest fatal crash rate of any generation in the state at nearly 48 fatalities per 100,000 residents, and they were involved in 267 of the state’s 730 total traffic deaths during the study period.”
Another study by Kitchel Law found that Mississippi ranks first in the nation for commute-hour fatalities. The state’s rate of 5.59 fatal crashes per 100,000 residents is 87% higher than the national average. Evening rush hour accounted for 105 of the fatalities.
“Mississippi’s position as the nation’s deadliest state for commuters demands urgent attention from drivers, employers, and policymakers alike,” a spokesperson from Kitchel Law said. “With evening rush hours accounting for nearly two-thirds of fatal crashes, Mississippi commuters should exercise heightened caution during the 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. window. Defensive driving, avoiding distractions and allowing extra travel time can be lifesaving measures on Mississippi roadways.”
Edens said she didn’t want to draw any direct conclusions about how those numbers could change with the implementation of the new driver education program requirements without more long-term data.
“Our report does not evaluate the effectiveness of specific policies or attempt to predict the impact of future legislation,” she said. “The analysis is limited to historical crash data and is intended to highlight the driving trends and fatal crash patterns identified in the data.”
COVID-Era Provisions
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state temporarily suspended the required road test for new drivers seeking a Mississippi license.
“We were not six feet away from the applicant in the car,” Harris, who worked for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety in 2020, said. “There wasn’t enough distance according to the CDC regulations, and it was a closed area. … So for the safety of the employees, they made that decision.”
The decision became permanent as the state never returned to requiring the road test. Instead, new drivers were required to take a written exam to obtain a learner’s permit. After a full year with the permit, the new driver could apply for a permanent license with an affidavit from a parent or guardian saying they had ridden with the driver for 50 hours.
McGairty said he understands the need for more driver training and safer roads. He hopes that during the first year of the law’s implementation, legislators will evaluate its effects on schools and school districts.
“We think in (school year) 26 to 27, we’ll be able to show how strained the program is in terms of financial need and impact, to make a safer Mississippi and a more holistic driver education course that can more easily be implemented through schools and be less of a burden and challenge to both educators and administrators,” he said.
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