“Approach every green light expecting it to change, not hoping that it doesn’t,” is a 13-word saying that hundreds of teen drivers in Danbury can recall Barry Thayer drilling into their heads at every driver’s ed class at his driving school.

The 75-year-old man, husband of Antoinette (Muscara) Thayer, unexpectedly died Dec. 16. in his home. He was born on June 15, 1940, in New London and attended college at HARTT School of Music where he majored in music education.

Throughout his life, Thayer had a passion for educating the community. He began teaching in the Danbury Public School System in 1963 and continued to do so until he retired in 2003.

“He was an elementary school teacher at one point and then he moved up to the high school,” said Jack Morris, a junior and one of Thayer’s seven grandchildren.

During his years of teaching music at the high school, Thayer also taught driver’s ed from 1985-2003.

“He didn’t really like it that much so one day his words were pretty much, ‘I’m starting my own school,’ ” Morris said.

When the driver’s education program at the high school ended in 2003, Thayer opened the Danbury office of “Thayer Driving Education” on Padanaram Road. In addition to this location, classes are also held at New Fairfield High School.

Thayer loved teaching and promoting safe driving, as it is evident by his emotions and personality that were expressed behind the wheel and in the class.

“Before I took his class I didn’t really know much about him [as a teacher],” Morris said. “He’s a completely different guy around the family, he’s really quiet and passive but when I started learning from him I saw what everyone else saw.”

Students enjoyed Thayer’s anecdotal approach of teaching the laws of the road and necessary precautions to be taken when behind the wheel. Each dangerous aspect of driving was always backed up with a story or video, making the classroom far more interesting.

Anthony Pacitti, junior, who was also a student of Thayer’s, said he enjoyed the classes with Thayer.

“He cared greatly about his students, and he had many stories about them,” Pacitti said. “He was very cautious in making sure we knew the rules of the road.”

His dedication toward ensuring that his students fully understood driving laws can also be seen through his attitude about making his point clear.

“We would also go back and forth with driving rules and he would sometimes get aggravated,” said Alex Yaldeh, junior. “His attitude was always to be safe on the road. Whenever we would see a mistake on the road he would go out of his way to show us the correct solution to the situation.”

Aside from his hours of dedication and training for every student, Thayer would always show up early on road test days with a box of Munchkins and his best wishes as it was always his goal to see every student pass.

Despite an occasional failure, generally most students would always pass as Thayer made sure that his students were fully prepared to test upon completing the required amount of hours on the road and classroom instruction.
“The most emotional moment I would say we had was the last time I saw him pursuing my driver’s test, and he congratulated me on passing,” Pacitti said.

The man had developed a personal connection with the school and his grandson Jack described it as “his baby.”

“ I’ve seen him do just about anything for all sorts of students and their parents,” Morris said.

“He loved all of them. It’s like he got new grandchildren every class as he would talk about them at family dinners even.”

Aside from teaching driver’s ed and owning a collection of numerous road signs and miniature vehicles, Thayer loved vikings and had relics throughout his house as he was from Norway.

In addition, his interests were also in Star Trek as he had memorabilia from that as well. Overall, he was considered to be very cheesy, intelligent, and kind.

Although our community lost a wonderful man who set out to keep the roads safer, the driving school will continue to run and the legacy that Thayer created will always remain.

“I can’t go anywhere without someone asking me about him,” Morris said.