When it comes to driving in the early 21st century, I guess I just don’t have the same psychic skills I once had -- before many people stopped using turn signals. When moving along at the speed limit, I’m constantly tailgated. I regularly see people yakking on their cell phones.

Most of us grew up having taken driver education in high school. I don’t know about your teacher, but if I had done any of the above mentioned, I would’ve failed miserably.

Harold "Bus" Carlton was Oneonta’s first driver-education teacher, back in the days when you used hand signals to indicate your turns. The year was 1937.

Carlton was not your average driver-education teacher. He was the first teacher to create a model traffic-safety curriculum for all public schools across New York, among other places. He also created the first driver-education course with road practice for credit.

Aided by then-Principal Joseph McLain and Superintendent George Dann, Carlton set up a traffic safety program for the Oneonta schools. During his time here, he spent most Saturdays holding courses for school-bus drivers in the surrounding area.

Jim Leveille, of Goodyear Lake, said that he was one of Carlton’s earliest students, along with Don Gobel and a couple of girls he couldn’t recall. Leveille described Carlton as very patient, never getting upset with mistakes, and an all-around great guy.

As he grew up in the former Academy Street School’s neighborhood, Leveille recalled, an area around Watkins Avenue and Grove Street would be closed off where a course was laid out for a special driving-skills competition among schools in the region, including Cooperstown, Cherry Valley, Richfield Springs and others.

The schools competed throughout the day in skills such as backing between safety cones, three-point turns and more. Leveille believes that somewhere among old trophies in Oneonta High’s collection is one in which Oneonta prevailed in a schools competition.

Caroline Hix Burke, an OHS alumna, said Carlton not only taught her how to drive, but she noticed that her children’s driver-education textbook was written by him.

By 1945, the state Education Department recognized the value of Carlton’s work in driver education and persuaded him to resign his faculty position at OHS. He joined the state Education Department to help coordinate a statewide program for school-bus drivers, at first.

He then joined the American Automobile Association and taught safety courses for the Army, Navy, Air Force, U.S. Postal Service and other governmental agencies throughout the U.S.

About the same time as Carlton developed the safety course for Oneonta, state Sen. Walter Stokes of Cooperstown introduced a bill in January 1937 to make highway safety and traffic-regulation courses compulsory in all state schools.

Gov. Herbert Lehman signed Stokes’ legislation that April, and it became law in September. The Tri-County Motor Club of AAA sent out questionnaires to school principals, superintendents and teachers regarding a course to prepare teachers to teach highway safety.

The first class was filled to capacity, with 45 teachers from Oneonta and the vicinity enrolled for a five-day intensive course from March 21-25, 1938.

Just days after completion, certificates were handed out at a dinner at the Hotel Oneonta. A state Education Department representative congratulated the teachers for the completion of the first project of its kind in New York.

Owen C. Becker, president of the Oneonta Board of Education, said a proposal was before the board to secure the first dual-control car to be used in driving instruction for high school students here.

Compulsory driver education continued until sometime in the 1980s. It is still offered by the Oneonta City School District through the Oneonta Community Education Center.

This weekend: Cooperstown becomes a village.

City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.