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5 MINUTES: Behind the wheel

Driving instructor gets variety of students,
young and old, good and not-so-good

By Sharon K. Wolfe

City dwellers who used mass transit. People moving here from other countries.

Professional driver’s education instruction isn’t just for teenagers. Students at Central Illinois Driving School Inc. have ranged in age from 15 to 86 and include city dwellers and those new to the U.S.

But their goal is the same—to prepare to pass the written test and road test to get a driver’s license.

An 86-year-old woman’s husband “had pretty much driven her around,” said Alexander Bardenshtein, the school’s owner-operator. But when he died, she had to learn to drive.

He learned about the driver’s education profession through an acquaintance, and finds his work rewarding. ”It makes you feel like you make a difference. They are being taught skills to use the rest of their lives.”

He used to be a physical therapist in Chicago, but got job burnout. “Working at hospitals got to me — I wanted to work with healthy people now.” He learned about the driving school profession from an acquaintance and found his new calling.

His family moved from the Ukraine in the early 1980s from the U.S. after an uncle relocated to the states for a job and wanted his family to join him. He’s been in the Twin Cities 13 years and owner-operator of the driving school 11 years.

What students learn might help them avoid an accident, he said, adding teachers are coaches and psychologists. “You have to be pretty much both.” That included helping someone who was comfortable with city driving, but had a phobia about highway driving.

“He has so much patience. He’s just dedicated. He does what he needs to do to get the job done,” said Michelle Schuler, secretary at the driving school. He’s been involved with the instruction of about 3,000 students.

High school-aged students also attend for a variety of reasons. High schools can’t provide driver’s education in the time frame students want.

Kristyn Miller, 15, who goes to Clinton High School, would have had to wait several months after her sixteenth birthday to get her driver’s license if she took the course at school. “I can get it on my birthday now,” said Miller, who turns 16 in November. So part of her summer involved Monday through Thursday classes for four weeks at the driving school.

Some of those taught are good students, but are so busy with academics and activities during the school year they take driver’s education in the summer.

Other are not good students—and some are dropouts. But they all want to drive. “It’s a big thing. We try to teach them to be responsible,” said Bardenshtein. Driving means needing a job to support the car, the gasoline, insurance, etc. so responsibility is learned. That could include a GED and just getting back on track in general.

Sometimes getting back on track comes literally—like when Bardenshtein was in a car with a student who would not listen in class or in the car. He drove too fast on snow and ice on the ramp off Veterans Parkway to Interstate 55.

The car spun around a couple of times. It was kind of going backwards. Bardenshtein physically had to take the student’s foot off the brake, since he didn’t heed the warning to pump the brakes.

“For the rest of the night, he went 20 mph,” Bardenshtein recalled. After that, the young man shaped up in class and Bardenshtein heard those lessons learned continued beyond the class for the young man.

Ninety percent of the adults and teens they teach pass the first time. That included the 86-year-old woman when she took the road and written test at the Secretary of State’s driver’s license station on West Market Street.

Not all do as well—including some much younger. One student drove off three times without someone in the car from the Secretary of State’s office for the driving test. Although the man could speak English, there was a disconnect. He did not get his license that day.

“The guy thought someone was going watch him from a distance,” Bardenshtein said. But maybe the most memorable story was a man who successfully completed his tests, but his foot got caught between the brake and the accelerator when he went to park. His sandal caught on the accelerator, and the car lurched into the window of an unoccupied tax preparation business next to the driver’s license exam station.

To top it all off, the driver asked if he still was getting his license, Bardenshtein chuckled. He eventually got his license at another facility.

Alexander Bardenshtein

Age: 43

Owner-operator

Central Illinois Driving School Inc.

1112 ½ E. Oakland Ave, Bloomington.

Wife: Pam

Native of the Ukraine

Northeastern University graduate, Boston, MA.

What he notices most about Twin City drivers:

At 4-way stops “they just kinda go whatever”

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Driver's Education teacher Alexander Bardenshtein and his student, Kevin Bischoff, 15, of Normal Community High School, get ready for a lesson at his Central Illinois Driving School. (DAVID PROEBER)

Driver's Education teacher Alexander Bardenshtein and his secretary, Michelle Schuler, look over the busy week's schedule at his Central Illinois Driving School. (DAVID PROEBER)

Driver's Education teacher Alexander Bardenshtein gives a lesson to his student, Aaron Tipsord, 15, of Normal Community High School, at the Central Illinois Driving School. (DAVID PROEBER)

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