Ohio has recently changed the age at which new drivers must be to avoid attending driving school. The age at which you must take a driving school course has changed from 18 to 21.

Previously, this meant that new drivers could wait until 18 and then go straight to the DMV to take their test to get their license. Now, people who are 18 years old must go through the process of completing driver’s education, just as those before them did.

This law went into effect on Sept. 30, of this year. This change allows people to no longer avoid attending driving school until their junior year of college. This also means that people now have to pay the $450 to take driving classes that they might not have had to pay before.

This law was enacted to improve driving among teenagers. A significant portion of fatal crashes in the past years were caused by 18 to 19-year-old drivers who did not undergo driver’s ed.
According to the Ohio Traffic Safety Office, between 2024 and Mar. 2025, there were 97 fatal accidents involving teen drivers in Ohio, with 67 of those accidents involving a teen driver at fault.

It is also reported that 58% of at-fault teenage drivers were 18 to 19-year-olds at the time of the fatal crash.

Another 26% of fatal crashes involving teenage drivers were caused by unsafe driving. On average, there have been 194 teen-related crashes per year since 2022.

Another change introduced by this law is that students are now required to log their 50 hours of driving through an app called Road Ready, which tracks and logs their driving.

Now, students can not lie about how much time they have spent driving with their parents.

“Yeah, it has gotten busier, not a lot quite yet, because people are still deciding not to do it and rather just wait,” said Carla Fleece, Training Manager of Driving School, Westerville, Ohio.

This means that students who are 18 without a license still cannot drive, even as they head off to college.

“Governor Mike Dwine said that the crash statistics were too high for that group of drivers, so this law went into effect to help lower those statistics and make the roads more safe,” Fleece said.

Brayden Leach, a senior at Wadsworth High School, was a student who was looking to get his license when he turned 18. However, a law change went into effect, and now he has to take driver’s ed.

“Personally, if I got my license earlier, I wouldn’t care, and I think it’s a good thing, but personally, you know, I was just trying to get my license,” Leech said.

Leach now has to undergo driving school and all the new changes they have implemented, including the new rule of tracking the 50 hours of personal driving and the $450 to do so.

“I think if it’s something that is required, you shouldn’t have to pay for the driving school,” Leach said.

As time passes, Ohio will continue to make adjustments and changes to its laws to improve the roads and make them safer for those who drive on them.