I think you guys are confusing defensive driving and drivers education, where you sit in a classroom for 30-40 hours, and have maybe 6 hours of actual driving.

Defensive driving is classes you take and have to pay for, where you normally act out real world scenarios, and they are expensive, but priceless imo. Best thing I've ever done driving wise, was take a few of these classes. Learning how to get out of a slide (like the black ice you're mentioning sammich), accident avoidance maneuvers, how to use abs correctly, etc.