For the first time ever, teenagers on Fort Bragg won’t have to rely on outside sources to take a state-approved drivers education course before applying for their North Carolina drivers license.
The All the Way driving school is now available at Tolson Youth Center for high school students within six months of their 15th birthday. The course features 30 hours of classroom time and another six hours behind the wheel.

According to class instructor Kalen Wilhide, it was important to her to be able to offer her services here at Fort Bragg.

“It very important for everyone to go through drivers ed,” Wilhide said. “Highway safety is very important to me. I’ve actually lost two (former) students from Hoke County, since I started this class and I’ve struggle with that, wondering what could I have done or said to them to make a difference.”

Wilhide was referring to an accident which took place April 22 in Hope Mills in which two Hoke County high school students were killed after reportedly running through an intersection before being struck by another vehicle.

“The driver of that car was my student,” she said. “The other one was not, but in picking up two students in this class, I had to pass through that intersection. If people drove defensively there would be no accidents, no crashes.”

Wilhide’s classes offer practical exercise and several guest speakers and exhibits to help students better understand the hazards of driving, vehicle capabilities and the difference between driving in normal and extreme conditions.

“We set up an obstacle course with cones and we have a golf cart that we drive through the cones,” she explained.

“Then I ask them to send me a text while driving and they realize it’s very difficult. After that, we put on the drunk goggles and I let them go through it with the drunk goggles on as well. It was very difficult for them.”

The purpose of these exercises are to help the students realize how different activities, such as texting and driving while intoxicated can impair their ability to drive safely.

“All distractions, really,” Wilhide said. “Even passengers talking to you or just drinking a drink can cause a collision. You have to be attentive at all times.”

We had a tractor trailer come into the parking lot and while the students were in the class, I moved my drivers ed car to the other side of the truck so that the students did not see. Then we took them outside, had each student sit in the cab of the truck and look in the mirror,” she explained. “They could not see the car. Then afterward, we took them around and they were surprised there was a car there.”

She said the exercise helped them to realize that there are blind spots and say, ‘hey, I don’t want to drive there.’

“It’s very important to stay out of the no-zone because they can’t see you,” explained Amanda Reeves, who’s also a student at Massey Hill and who turned 16 in May. “I didn’t know about that before I came to this class.”

Elizabeth Westerberg, 15, a student at Massey Hill High School, who explained that she has learned a lot from taking Wilhide’s class.

“I learned about different fluids that go in a care, Correct Pause and Recovery, which explains how to react to a skid and how the car reacts with contact to ice,” explained Westerberg.

“Driving with the drunk goggles was really hard because everything looked like double. I didn’t know it would be like that.”

“The golf cart was fun, yet confusing,” Keira Stevenson, 15, said. “When we had to do the texting, it’s kind of hard to do that and pay attention to the road and your cell phone at the same time, she continued.

(Wilhide) makes the classes fun and active.”

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