Bob Foos
Tim Doss is in the final weeks of his long ride as a drivers ed instructor.
The former teacher and coach says he thinks he started teaching drivers ed 42 years ago.
At the peak of drivers ed, he recalls three instructors teaching 125 students per summer. That was before driver’s permits were issued. This summer, he is splitting 75 students with Dusty Allen, the recently retired Eugene Field Elementary principal, who has been a drivers ed instructor for 15 years.
Figuring an average of 30 kids per year would mean more than 1,200 students have been taught to drive by Doss.
He’s reached the point now where students tell him, “‘Well, you had my mom,’ or ‘you had my dad.’”
It’s true the drivers ed teacher has his own brake in case of emergency. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be getting in,” Doss says.
“They don’t stop soon enough.” In fact, “The number one problem for new drivers is rear-end collisions.”
There are some scary moments, such as miscalculating a right turn and ending up in someone’s yard.
For the most part, though, he says the student drivers are pretty good. But he wishes he had written down some of the more memorable mishaps.
One in particular sticks in his mind. They were casually going down a country road at 55 mph when the girl driver slammed on the brakes. When asked why, she answered, “‘I’m not running over that black chicken.’ A boy in the back seat yelled, ‘It’s a crow!’ Then the boy said, ‘I’ll walk back to school. It might be safer.’”
Doss says Webb City is the only school he knows of that still offers drivers ed.
Whether that continues to be true could be in question since both he and Allen are retiring. But Superintendent Brenten Byrd says the goal is to keep offering it.
“It’s a good summer job, sitting in the car for eight hours a day,” says Doss.
It’s not all parallel parking practice. “We go to some pretty neat places,” he says, such as Grand Lake, Springfield, Arkansas and up to Nevada. Students are required to be behind the wheel for at least six hours.
With two instructors and two cars for 75 students, it can take up to seven weeks. Back when more students were taking the course, Doss said there were three cars and instructors, and he would have to work some Saturdays. They try to be done by July 4, but sometimes they go beyond that.
Doss got his certification at Missouri Southern State University, but it’s no longer available there. The University of Central Missouri offers certification, with some online coursework. However, Doss says he believes it’s necessary to go there for one semester.
Doss figures 42 years is enough for him. “Maybe I’ll have more time to play golf.”
The Webb City Sentinel isn’t a newspaper – but it used to be, serving Webb City, Missouri, in print from 1879-2020. This “newspaper” seeks to carry on that tradition as a nonprofit corporation.
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