Believe it or not, while you might need to wear shoes at the local convenience store when you walk in to buy a cold drink, you are not legally required to wear them when you get behind the wheel of an automobile and drive to that store.

Yes, that’s right, barefoot driving is currently legal in all 50 states. However, just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s safe. In fact, using bare feet to operate your vehicle can be very dangerous. Not only are bare feet dangerous for driving, but you should also consider what kind of shoe you might be wearing.

For instance, flip-flops offer no heel support and because they fit very loosely may not allow your foot to move freely and easily between the accelerator and brake pedal–or the clutch if you are driving a manual transmission vehicle. Therefore, flip-flops can be dangerous. So too are high-heels. High heels are hard enough to walk in, much less try to drive in. Both these types of shoe wear make it difficult for drivers to gauge exactly how much pressure they are putting on the pedal they are trying to engage. This means they may not have complete control of their vehicle at all times–a dangerous situation for any driver to be in.

At Improv Traffic School, we like to think of ourselves as the best traffic school online available. For this reason, with summer just literally a short time away, we would be remiss is we didn’t take a moment to caution all our driving friends against getting behind the wheel with anything less than proper footwear.