Driving with Jimmy

Driving safer, a better community and a better future. I had a friend named Jimmy that you probably have heard of on the news. He was a classmate, a friend and someone who made people laugh. He was driving on the interstate and drove too fast and died instantly when his car hit the cement block on the Highway. His car then exploded and he was burned. He died instantly. His funeral was a closed casket and happened a couple months before he started college and was going to work on becoming a Doctor. I grew up with Jimmy and went to a medical program during high school. He had a lot of potential, but due to that car accident we will never see him as a doctor or at all. Achieving my career goal will always be bitter sweet, not only to me but to my friends and I in the medical-high school program who were there with him and now without him.

What can I do to be a better and safer driver? I really need to learn to take my time when I drive to go anywhere. As I was preparing to know what to write for this essay it really made me reflect on all the experiences I have lived or seen while driving. Most of my family and friends have driven irresponsibly while growing up and due to their mistakes they have taught me the importance of driving safely. To really not take life as a joke. To realize that being late is better than not being able to make it to my destination at all. (Something that I have struggled with for a long time.) Something that I’ve been trying to work on is being more responsible on how much time I give myself before I have to be somewhere. I have come to learn that my life is not the only one that matters. As I am driving there are other people who are in many different situations in their lives that I need to respect and care for them by driving responsibly. Something that I have noticed with drivers education is that they teach responsibility more than anything. That is truly something we need more than anything right now.

Social media can be a big part of helping others become a safer driver. When I was younger in my community they tried doing a lot of outreach programs to the youth of the dangers of texting and driving. They would even teach it during halloween in a haunted house so we could have fun but learn a little something serious at the same time. My friends and I would volunteer in High school to figure out creative ways to teach “Don’t text and drive”. It would get harder every year, but every year it was worth it to hear a couple students say that that was the best part of the haunted house. I also grew up seeing commercials of click it or ticket and other catchy phrases, but now that TikTok is at its top use, we can use that to our advantage to help teach in a catchy way the importance of driving safely. Now with technology being on the rise and everyone knowing how to use it more and more it can be a lot easier to approach people from all ages and different parts of the country. If it’s as simple as click it or ticket in an 8 second TikTok people will watch it and have the friends and family they care about watch it as well.

Something that I have noticed that would help my community is having drivers ed classes be more accessible for people who cannot afford those kinds of classes. Advertising it more so that more people can know and put their kids or friends who are learning how to drive. I did notice that my last year of high school they were making it more available for the students in my community and a lot of them were grateful because they could learn the laws of this country since their family was from someone else. They felt cared for and watched out over to feel safer in their own community. That is one of the many things I will always be grateful for: Something that can be done too is officers being more strict especially with youth who text and drive because it really can be deadly. There could also be a mandatory course in High School where kids take so that they know the risks that happen when they drive irresponsibly. Depending on the student whether or not they have a car they will forever remember the consequences of irresponsible driving.

From having the experience of my friend Jimmy dying when I was younger it changed everyone in my community.