By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Chilton County Schools hosted its first Driver’s Education Road-e-o on May 2.

During the event, student drivers had to navigate an obstacle course of traffic cones and complete common driving tasks. Completing elements correctly, such as stopping at a stop sign and doing a three-point turn, helped a student’s score, but hitting cones hurt it.

Each school picked its top two drivers from the driver’s education course to participate in the event.

Brett Johnson of Isabella High School won first place.

Johnson said he was confident that he had done well on the course and would win.

“It was fun,” Johnson said.

Caleb Hobbs of Maplesville High School placed second.

Jake Logan of Isabella High School came in third place. He said he had successfully completed the course without hitting any traffic cones.

Logan said the drivers also had to signal correctly. He said the lane change was the easiest part of the course.

He said he enjoyed being able to get out of the classroom.

“It was pretty fun, kind of difficult,” Tanner Jones of Thorsby High School said describing the course.

For him, the first task, stopping at a stop sign, was the most difficult.

“It creeps up on you,” Jones said.

He said the three-point turn was the easiest part of the course.

Students also had to complete two parking simulations, getting as close as possible to the boundary cone without hitting it.

The Driver’s Education Road-e-o is a program offered by the State Department of Education’s driver and safety education department.

Jeremy Seamon with the department said Chilton County is the third location to hold such an event and he hopes to see it grow.

He said the event is an opportunity for “driver’s education teachers to showcase the hard work they put on all year … and give the kids a good reward for being good drivers.”

“The course incorporates most of your everyday aspects of driving,” Seamon said.

He said the tiebreaker for if multiple students completed the course without hitting a cone was measuring who was the closest to the boundary cone in the parking simulations.

“I enjoy getting to spend some time with the teachers and kids in a less strict environment — I’m usually in classrooms monitoring,” Seamon said.

Ashlie Harrison of the CCS Department of Teaching and Learning worked with Seamon to coordinate the event.

“We learned some things,” Harrison said. “We are going to make it a lot harder next year. We hope this grows every year.”

Seamon said the instructors do a great job.

“They have driver’s ed back during the regular school year and theses driver’s education teachers are actually able to test students for their licenses in the driver’s education setting,” Seamon said.

After all of the students had gone through the course, the instructors took a turn at the wheel — only the goal this time was to see how fast the course could be completed.