Behind the Wheel in North Dakota: Lessons, Log and Supervisors

Before you enroll: which training counts

Two kinds of course satisfy the under 16 rule. The school version, under the Department of Public Instruction, is 30 hours of classroom and 6 hours behind the wheel. The commercial version is 6 hours behind the wheel at an NDDOT approved driver training school.

NDDOT's school list is sorted by town, and an asterisk flags the schools whose course can stand in for the road test. Some listed schools are not currently offering training, so call before you plan your summer around one.

In the first lessons

A student can start in-car instruction at 14. In the school program, the student may drive the district's training car without a permit as long as a certified instructor is present and the district carries the required insurance.

Outside that training car, family practice needs the instruction permit, so get it early enough that the two can run side by side.

Through the practice months: building the 50 hours

A permit holder under 16 must log at least 50 supervised hours beyond the course. Both the statute and the manual spell out where those hours happen: after dark, in winter weather, on gravel, dirt or aggregate surfaces, in towns and cities, and out in the country.

The log in the manual has a row for each and a line for the total. The state does not set a split. An instructor's rule of thumb is at least 5 hours in each setting and the remaining 25 wherever your teen is shakiest.

Say your son gets his permit in May at 14. Summer is good for town traffic and gravel, fall evenings get dark early for night hours, and December through February gives you the winter row. By the following spring you will have touched every condition at least once in real weather.

North Dakota never asks to see the log. Your signature at the road test is the proof, which means you are personally vouching for those hours.

Every time you get in the car: supervisor and vehicle

Any supervisor needs a license for the vehicle class, must be 18 or over and must have three years of driving. They ride up front next to the teen, and everyone else goes in back unless there is no back seat.

Until 16, your teen may practice only in a car owned by a parent or guardian, a grandparent, a sibling, or an aunt or uncle. A dual control car with a licensed trainer is the exception, which is how driving schools can use their own cars.

On test day: can the course replace the road test?

It can, if the course qualifies. The completion certificate from a North Dakota driving school, or the student certificate from a Department of Public Instruction program, replaces the Class D road test when the course had at least 30 classroom hours and 6 in-car hours and NDDOT approved it for waiver purposes.

A course that is only 6 in-car hours satisfies the under 16 requirement but does not on its own earn the waiver. Ask the school about waiver approval before enrolling, and keep the certificate somewhere safe until the appointment.

After the test at 15: keep coaching

A 15 year old who passes gets a restricted Class D license good only in family-owned cars. Late at night, meaning from sunset or 9 p.m. (whichever comes later) to 5 a.m., an adult 18 or older, or a parent or guardian, has to be in the front seat. Trips going straight to a job, an official school event or a religious activity, or straight home from one, are exempt.

Use those restricted months to keep riding along on dark and snowy evenings. The license becomes unrestricted at 16 on its own, but the ban on phone use stays until 18.

If your teen waits until 16 or 17

At 16 or 17 the requirements shrink to six months on the permit and the road test. There is no course and no hour count, though the same supervisor rules apply.

Keep the log anyway. The state picked those five conditions for its youngest drivers because they are where new drivers struggle, and a 16 year old on an icy gravel road at night has the same problem.