Staff photo by Alex Washburn/Chattanooga Times Free Press – November 19, 2011. Bruce Johnson talks about the rules of driving through a roundabout while teaching a Driver’s Education class at Hixon’s Old Middle School on Saturday. The City’s Driver Education program has been around two years and nearly 900 teens have graduated from it thus far. Thanks to a law passed by the Tennessee Legislature, fledgling Chattanooga drivers will have to go back to building their driving skills under the watchful eyes of Mom or Dad.
The Chattanooga Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that no new courses will be offered in the city’s drivers education program as a result of a loss of revenue that had been generated by unmanned speed enforcement cameras, according to a news release.
Money generated by the cameras was used to fund the program, but a state law enacted earlier this year prohibits the use of most of those cameras throughout Tennessee, leading to the program’s suspension.
“Since its inception in November 2009, close to 3,000 young Chattanoogans have successfully completed the professional defensive driving curriculum and multimodal instruction provided by the City of Chattanooga’s Drivers Education Program,” the release stated.
One of the bills listed in the release as a cause of the move was sponsored by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, D-Chattanooga, and cited concerns about the legitimacy of unmanned cameras.