Emergency Braking, Evasive Maneuvers, and a Deputy in the Passenger Seat: Rutherford’s Free Teen Driving Class Has Two Dates Left This Year

The most dangerous thing most Rutherford County teenagers will do this year is not a sport, a party or anything their parents are currently worried about. It is the left turn across Memorial Boulevard at 4:45 on a Tuesday.

Rutherford County's school resource officers have been quietly building a program around that fact, and there are two sessions left on the 2026 calendar: October 23-24 and November 13-14. The course is free. Spots are reportedly close to gone.

How the two days work

The format splits classroom and pavement across a Friday and a Saturday.

Friday evening is a three-hour online session — the sit-down portion, covering the things that actually kill young drivers rather than the things that show up on a permit test. Distracted driving. Aggressive driving. Fatigue. Severe weather. Speed.

Saturday is the part that makes this program different from a commercial driving school: one-on-one behind-the-wheel instruction with a school resource officer. Not a lecture about evasive maneuvers — actual evasive maneuvers. Emergency braking, practiced hard enough that a student learns what the pedal feels like when the anti-lock system engages and the car starts making unfamiliar noises. Parallel parking. Defensive technique drilled until it is reflex rather than theory.

There is a specific logic to having a deputy in the passenger seat for this. These are the officers who work the wrecks. They are teaching from the other end of the outcome.

Who can sign up

The course is open to Rutherford County Schools students, virtual students, and homeschooled students who live in Rutherford County. It costs nothing — no fee, no materials charge.

Registration runs through School Resource Officer Chad Dodson at cdodson@rcsotn.org. Sessions have been filling quickly, and only a few openings were reported as of this week, so an email now is worth more than an email in October.

Why a free class is worth the Saturday

Tennessee's graduated licensing system does a reasonable job of limiting when and with whom a new driver is on the road. What it cannot do is give a sixteen-year-old the one thing experience provides: a rehearsed response to the moment the car stops behaving the way it did thirty seconds ago.

Most teenagers meet that moment for the first time at speed, in traffic, alone. The entire premise of this course is to move that first meeting into a controlled setting on a Saturday morning, with cones instead of oncoming traffic, and someone in the right-hand seat who has seen how the other version ends.

Two dates. No cost. A few seats.

The details

• Dates: October 23-24, 2026 and November 13-14, 2026
• Format: Three-hour online class Friday evening; one-on-one driving instruction with an SRO on Saturday
• Cost: Free
• Eligible: Rutherford County Schools students, virtual students, and homeschool students living in Rutherford County
• Register: Email SRO Chad Dodson, cdodson@rcsotn.org

More free happenings around town are in our local's guide to Murfreesboro.