"Come on, let's go! You'll do fine."
"Oh, my gosh!"
"Relax, everything's fine."
"I don't know how to do this."
"Yes, you do."
"What if I get in a wreck?"
"If you kill us, I promise I will never speak to you for the rest of my life."
It is a sunny fall morning and West High student Leafa Otukolo is learning how to drive. Today marks her third time behind the wheel. Sitting calmly next to Otukolo, holding a can of Diet Coke, is veteran drivers' education teacher Ed Thomas.
At a stoplight, Thomas says, "Pedal down," "Floorboard it" or "Pedal to the metal." Then he asks, "What do those terms mean?"
"I don't know," says Otukolo.
"Well, I've got to make sure you know because once I almost got killed," Thomas said. "We were going on the freeway, and I said, 'Pedal to the metal,' and (the person) stopped, and what happened was a great big truck just missed us. I assumed everybody knew 'pedal to the metal,' but now I ask."
After the 30-minute drive, Otukolo improved as a driver, but was still quite shaken.
She said, "I thought I was going to die. I don't like driving. It scares me when other cars are coming toward me."
When asked what was the hardest part about her drive, Otukolo said, "Putting my speed up. My leg was shaking."
Over the years, Thomas has noticed that the biggest problem students have is that they don't check their blind spots. He has also noticed, over the years, a decline in parental participation in their child's training.
"A major problem is that parents are not willing to help anymore," said Thomas. "They're afraid. If you ask (the kids) a basic question, like which pedal is which, they have no idea — because their parents aren't teaching them. Parents need to help. That is why kids are required to drive for 30 hours before they can get their licenses.
"Then again, many parents aren't the greatest drivers in the world. We try to teach (the kids) the right way to drive, but
when they're on their own, they revert back to how their parents drive."
One thing is for certain: It takes nerves of steel and a sense of humor to be a drivers' ed teacher, sitting in that passenger seat day after day.
Thomas jokes, "They're going to kill us. We just don't know when."
Anthony Schrauth is a senior at West High who actually took drivers' education from Ed Thomas. Schrauth doesn't recall ever being terribly afraid behind the wheel, but he does remember Thomas telling him one day on the freeway that this was the best he would ever drive. "He told me, 'After you get your license and I'm not sitting next to you, you are going to start picking up bad habits.' So I've been determined to drive as correctly as possible ever since." To date, Schrauth has not had a ticket.