Tennessee Needs Drivers Education

At age 14, I was enrolled in a drivers education program to get a Hardship drivers license. It was something I will never forget.

I am a lucky young man, being able to drive as young as I am. I am just 15 and preparing to graduate from high school and college with an associate’s degree in the Spring. I appreciate that my parents pushed me to work hard in school, but we found that they were very inconvenienced with having to drive me to and from classes while they both have jobs. As a result, a hardship drivers license was the answer. To get this in Tennessee you have to take a four day drivers class and put in quite a few hours driving with the instructors.

My biggest takeaway from the classes was amazement that the state of Tennessee makes it difficult to take a driver’s education class. Drivers Education has been cut from many schools due to budget constraints and simply because people can skip it. It was actually difficult to find a real drivers education class—we had to go to Chattanooga, an hour and a half drive, one way to get to the nearest school. I don’t know any kids who have taken drivers education training of any type, like I did. My mom, from Wisconsin, took it in high school and has repeated some of the things she has learned. I am sad that this program is considered unnecessary in Tennessee.

While it is no fun getting up early on the weekend to go to class, I learned a lot. I went into the class thinking that I have a lot of experience driving in computer games, so I will do fine. I had even bragged to my parents that I am good at driving semi’s. I quickly learned that most of what people need to learn is not how to handle the vehicle. Is it how to act and how to react to others and the environment.

My instructor was a former police officer. He told us stories of accidents and personal experiences that really impacted each of us. He has had to tell many people that a loved one died in a car accident, often from driving impaired or distracted, or as the result of someone else driving that way, hitting them. But the class was not all just scary stories. He had funny stories of people required to take driving classes due to accidents. They would call him to say they were late, while they were driving. One student even got into an accident while texting the instructor. While the stories were very funny, especially the way he told them, it was easy to think that it could happen to us or our friends, if we did not value the important lessons he was giving us. We learned so much during those classes! I know I will forever remember the little tips we were taught, like how to judge the proper distance you need to have between cars at different speeds. All of those things add up to make you a good driver.

While I have never been in an accident, my sister was in one when she was 16. She totaled her new car before it even got its first oil change. She ran into another car stopped in an unexpected part of the road because she was distracted. She had friends in the car and the music was blasting. She was so embarrassed because she really did not have a good excuse for why she did not see the car in time. She was not speeding. She was in town, probably driving 35 miles per hours. She just wasn’t paying enough attention. That is such an important thing that new drivers take for granted. Recently my mom was driving during a heavy rain. She was working hard to concentrate on traffic on the interstate, but a billboard caught her attention enough that my dad got on to her for bad driving. It was just a fraction of a second, but that was all it took for a noticeable disrruption with her lane position.

I wish the schools in Tennessee could get funding to offer drivers education. I don’t know if that will ever change, so until it does, I will try to share some of the stories and lessons I got from my class with my friends. Although it is hard, I try to remember to not distract others when they drive. Little things like choosing to not have conversations while driving through town or when traffic on the interstate is busy is very helpful. I have playlists on my phone for music that we like, so that we don’t feel the need to change songs while driving. I help my family and friends out when they drive, by answering phone calls or texts for the driver. We need to remember, or be taught, that driving is somewhat like team event with everyone in the car making an impact as well as all of the other drivers on the road.