RÉSUMÉ DIGEST
ACT 343 (HB 437) 2017 Regular Session White
Existing law specifies that no application for a license for the operation of a motor vehicle
could be received from any person making application for the first time unless there was also
submitted with the application, on a form approved by the secretary of the Dept. of Public
Safety and Corrections, public safety services, written evidence of the successful completion
by the applicant of a driver education course or a prelicensing training course.
New law authorizes a driver education provider to provide all or part of the six-hour
classroom instruction portion of an approved prelicensing training course by an alternative
method of instruction that does not require students to be present in a traditional classroom,
subject to approval by the Dept. of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services.
New law authorizes the Dept. of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services to
approve the alternative method if it includes testing and security measures that are at least
as secure as the measures available in the traditional classroom setting and use of the
alternative method satisfies any other requirement applicable to a prelicensing training
course taught in the traditional classroom setting.
New law prohibits any portion of the 30-hour classroom instruction of the "driver education
course" required by existing law from being offered in any setting other than a traditional
classroom to persons under the age of 18.
New law authorizes the Dept. of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, to
establish rules and regulations necessary to define the requirements for alternative methods
of instruction for the classroom portion of an approved prelicensing training course and
provides that the rules are subject to oversight review by the house and senate committees
on transportation, highways and public works.
Effective August 1, 2017.
(Adds R.S. 32:402.1(B))