Nearly 20,000 teens in Georgia have received their driver's licenses without a road test

Nearly 20,000 teens in Georgia have received their driver's licenses without a road test

The sweaty palms on the steering wheel. The repeated exclamations of "Sorry!" The nervous glances from the examiner.

They're all part of the dreaded road test, which, for decades, has been a rite of passage for every American teenager to obtain their driver's license.

Well, until now.

"I had been nervous about the driving test - with the parallel parking and all that," said 17-year-old Willa Pevey from Tucker, Georgia.

"So I was happy that I didn't have to do it."

Neither did thousands and thousands of other teens in Georgia. All of them got their licenses without taking an official road test. It's Georgia's way of handling the backlog of the thousands of road test requests that have been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, the state's Department of Driver Services released just how many teens had their permits upgraded since the road test waiver was announced last month: 19,483 teens.

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