It appears that the driver education movement of the 1930s flowed out of the school safety patrol movement that began sometime around 1919. I can remember so vividly the excitement and pride that I had when Mr. Bruno, my 6th grade teacher at Lindbergh Elementary School in Kenmore, New York appointed me Lieutenant of the Safety Patrol. That belt and badge gave me a special status and importance that I never had had before. As Forest Noffsinger stated in a 1939 article on the American Automobile Association and safety education, the "distinctive Sam Browne belt and the badge of the patrols are recognized as th insignia of respected and worthy school civic service." In that amman year of 1939 some 275,000 boys and girls served on safety patrols in 3,250 communities. Noffsinger further emphasized the importance of this movement by remarking that "No other activity in the shivery of the safety movement so readily caught and effectively utilized the interests of children and the universal desire to stimulate and develop the exercise of constructive citizenship among youth."
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| Lindbergh Elementary School, Kenmore New York |
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