The dance lesson that is driver's ed

“No tickets, no accidents” Rose Ann Goddard tells all of her students before giving them what they earn in her class: a driver’s license. Short, catchy phrases are the Graham High School teacher’s style.

Goddard realizes the importance the piece of plastic plays in her student’s lives. It’s a passage from childhood to adulthood, from being dependent to gaining freedom. Her responsibility: to teach them to drive safely.

Goddard’s classroom is a Ford Taurus. That’s where she is at the end of most school days. This week she has two new students, both 15. On Monday, Samantha Williams is behind the wheel and in the back seat is her partner, Drew Plott. His job while Williams drives: observe and critique. Then they will change places.

“Thirty-four years,” Goddard says. “That’s how long I’ve been teaching students to drive.” She started the second year that she came to the Bluefield school. Since that time, she’s climbed into the passenger seat with 2,000 young drivers. One of those students is now her assistant principal; others are parents of students she teaches today.

“It’s scary sometimes,” she says of her job, “but I’ve never had an accident.” There have been some close misses, though. “Every driver is different,” she says. “You don’t know how they will react. Sometimes I need an accelerator instead of a brake.” What she means by this is that she has a brake installed on her side of the car, but that’s all the control she has.

“One student pulled out in front of a truck and stopped. I had to say ‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ ” Most of the time the class that’s required of all Virginia drivers if they want to drive before they are 19 is uneventful.

“Right technique, right attitude,” she says are the commonwealth of Virginia’s hallmarks for licensing. “I teach them mechanics and try to change behavior. Attitude and behavior play a big role in how well they drive. In states that offer drivers education in schools, you find a reduced rate in accidents. And the more experience you give them, the better drivers they become.”

Williams and Plott are about to get their first classroom driving experience.

“Adjust the mirrors, steering wheel, and seat,” she tells Williams. “Locate the turn signals, wipers, and lights. How much gas do you have? Mrs. Goddard doesn’t want to walk,” the teacher says from the front passenger seat.

With the checklist completed, Williams starts the car. That’s when Goddard becomes a dance instructor and the car becomes Williams’ dance partner. Goddard tells her how to hold and lead the Taurus. “Knuckles out on the steering wheel. Hands at nine and three o’clock or eight and four, she says. “Now pull forward.”

When Williams comes to the middle of the empty school parking lot, Goddard begins the next phase of the dance: figure eights with the car in reverse.

“Put your right arm on the back of my seat, look back, turn the steering wheel, give the car some gas. Now, look forward, turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction, look back, quick glances in the mirrors,” Goddard instructs as Williams waltzes the car around the lot. Then it’s time for road experience and attitude checks.

Goddard lets Williams get herself in trouble on a nearby residential street: straight-up with a hairpin curve. Williams would have had no trouble going up, but first she stopped just before the curve to practice incline parking, and second, a storm the night before had covered the asphalt with a layer of wet leaves.

The Taurus’s tires can’t find traction, they spin, and the car fills with the smell of burning rubber.

“What do you want to do?” Goddard asks.

“I’ll back up and try again,” Williams says. That she does, several times, but each time, the tires spin on the slippery-as-ice asphalt.

“Remember, push, pull,” Goddard tells her. “Drive with your hands instead of your shoulders.”

That’s a technique Goddard calls “walking the wheel,” whereby you place your left hand at 8 o’clock on the steering wheel, your right hand at 2. Then push your left hand to 10 while pulling your right one to 4. “You can turn quicker,” the teacher says.

Williams decides to turn the car around and find a detour. At the bottom of the hill, at the stop sign, Goddard says, “Come to a nice, smooth stop.”

“Round a right and square a left,” she pulls from her bag of catchy phrases at the next intersection where Williams plans to turn. “You have to clear your rear end,” she says.

“I’m used to driving a big Ford Explorer,” Williams explains as she focuses on keeping the Taurus on the right-hand side of the unmarked pavement.

The Explorer is the vehicle Williams is using to log the 40 hours of road driving she needs before she can get her permanent license. Her sister rides with her as a legal driver and signs the log.

Goddard’s satisfaction with her job comes when students tell her, “I didn’t know that,” after she gives them a practical driving tip. Not all of her advice is well taken, she says. Especially when she’s giving advice to friends with whom she’s riding. “If I’m sitting in the passenger seat, I’m directing and double-checking the sight.” It’s a habit she can’t turn off. Friends don’t hold her criticism against her, however. The proof lies with her fiancé who still wants to marry her even though on one of their first dates she told him when to brake and how fast to drive.

“Where’s your weak side?” she asks Williams who’s finished for the day and is returning to the school parking lot.

“It’s to my left,” she says of the limited sight she has of the street in that direction. Then she looks to her right and gives a quick check back to her weak side before pulling into the school parking lot.

“Come to a nice, smooth stop, turn off the motor, and unlock the doors,” Goddard says finishing Williams’ first lesson.

Plott climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Adjust the mirrors, seat, and steering wheel,” Goddard begins. Then it’s on to the dance around the parking lot, before Plott gets his chance to maneuver the leaf-covered hill that he thinks he can conquer.