COVID-19 putting the brakes on many teens' driver ed plans

(FOX 2) - Learning how to drive is a rite of passage but COVID-19 is throwing a wrench in those summer plans.

The pandemic is bringing new challenges for driver education programs. 

Take The Official Driving School in Royal Oak for example. "We just had to turn away 600 students over the past two weeks," owner Ben Malburg told us. And that's just one driving school. 

The Official Driving School has 50 schools across the state, and there are about 170 driving schools total in Michigan.

"And we're just talking about 600 just here," Malburg said. "the capacity limits that we have, there's just no way we can do your driver education this summer."

Seems, driving schools are classified as social gatherings, meaning only nine students and one instructor can fit into a classroom at any one time. But Ben's attorney wrote the Secretary of State saying driving schools should be classified as businesses instead and be limited by, say, 50% capacity of its space like restaurants, for example. 

FOX 2 contacted the Secretary of State who said they were looking into Malburg's request. 

"I don't think that they realize the scope of driver ed. I mean we've got storefronts, we just don't operate in high schools, you know," Malburg said.

Meanwhile, Malburg says his company is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because of the virus.