Driving schools under closer scrutiny

Parents and teen drivers can now easily find out on the Web if a driving school has been in trouble with the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The effort is the first in a series of overhauls of driver education in Massachusetts, including a standardized curriculum for driver education.

The initiative began yesterday with the debut of a new driver education section on the Registry website that will let parents and students find and evaluate licensed driver education programs, review discipline taken against those schools, and get tips about what to look for in choosing a school.

The new tool debuted as a bill moves through the Legislature that would bolster the amount of training required before teens receive their driver's license. The bill, which passed the House and is currently in the Senate, would keep the age for getting a license at 16 1/2 but would raise the amount of time behind the wheel with an instructor from six to 12 hours.

In its current form, the bill would also require at least 40 hours of driving with parents, who would also have to spend two hours in driver education classes with their child.

Prior to the new website, the only way for parents to know if a driving school had been cited by the state was to call the Registry and ask for the information from Vehicle Safety and Compliance Services.

The driving school infractions go back three years and include warnings for falsification of records, vehicle maintenance, and violations of state policies and procedures. In all, 15 schools statewide have been cited for infractions since 2003.

Details can be found at the website www.mass.gov/rmv/driversed/index.htm.

Anne L. Collins, registrar of motor vehicles, said yesterday that she has also increased the number of inspectors of driving schools to 25.

Collins came to the Registry from the Division of Professional Licensure, where she allowed online public access to license searches. ``I wanted to just do the same for driving schools," she said.

The Commonwealth is also developing a standardized curriculum for driver education, which is currently in draft form. Prior to this, there was no standardized approach, Collins said. There will also be a new service allowing driving schools to do online submission of their records, such as attendance and the number of training hours each student has behind the wheel.

Collins said she put the driving school information online ``not to put these guys out of business but to give consumers the ability to ask that next question."