State Rep. Tony Exum Sr. was a career firefighter – the stereotype of the guy who runs in a burning building to save a baby.

You can imagine that as he pushes ahead with legislation to help foster kids in the most fundamental way: making sure there’s a steady hand in their life, at least while they’re learning to drive.

Asked what was on his mind in the Capitol basement hallway on a busy Wednesday, that was it.

“We think it’s just one less problem for foster kids to have to think about, of all the things they have to deal with, socially, emotionally, to have somebody in their corner to help them with driver education,” said the Democrat from Colorado Springs. “It’s not too much to ask.”

House Bill 1073 asks for $63,000 a year for a grant program in the Department of Human Services to reimburse the state’s 64 counties for the cost of driver education courses for foster kids, about $500 each. The bill also grants immunity from liability to counties who pay for driver education.

House Bill 1071 was supported by the bicameral legislative transportation committee this summer, and it’s co-sponsored by Rep. Monica Duran, D-Wheat Ridge, along with Sens. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, and Dennis Hisey, R-Fountain.

Duran told the House committee this week that there are about 200 foster kids statewide who would be eligible for the benefit today.

 The state doesn’t do enough specifically for foster kids, and society might pay a price for that later on for that lack of attention and guidance as children, Exum explained.

“They feel abandoned,” he said. “Some of the homes they’re in do a great job, but this is something extra that they might not get, and it’s going to make our roads safer.”

The bill passed unanimously out of the House Transportation and Local Government Committee Tuesday.

Tori Shuler grew up in the foster care in Colorado and now directs the Colorado operations of the Fostering Great Ideas nonprofit in Denver.

She got a driver’s license without any formal training, she told the committee, telling the House committee she sees now what a risk she was taking with her safety and other’s.

“Driving is something we generally learn as teenagers, but it’s a skill we use through the rest of our lives,” she said. “Having that foundation through driver’s education is fundamental.”