Driver Education Is A Choice, Not A Right

I cannot explain how important driver education is in reducing the number of deaths as a result of driving, especially in today’s world. In this day and age, there are so many more distractions for drivers than there ever were before, including phones. Mobile phones have been the center cause of the shattering of so many families throughout the country ever since their debut all those years ago. I have had a personal experience with people who have been seriously injured in car crashes before, which I will talk about in more depth later on. Driver education is one of the main things that people need to be aware of in order to reduce the number of deaths that occur from driving, and this heavily applies to teenagers as they are involved in most of the car crashes these days. If people continue to be uneducated when it comes to driving, so many more people will die as a result of senseless driving and overconfident individuals.

There are a number of important steps that can be taken in order to reduce the amount of these deaths related to driving. One of the biggest factors accounting into the deaths associated with driving is seat belts. I hear of so many kids from all different grades in my high school who don’t wear seat belts when they drive, and that they think it is “lame” to wear them. Most of the time, if someone has died in a car crash, it was likely due to the fact that they were not wearing a seat belt and when the car was impacted, they flew out of the car resulting in their death. Another thing to take note of is to limit the amount of driving that you do at night, as it is harder to see your surroundings and your reaction time can be slower if something like a deer were to pop out in front of you while driving in the dark. Lastly, speaking to others about how fast or slow they drive is a very important step in making the roads a safer place. Driving recklessly obviously can and will result in accidents, and even deaths among anyone who participates in this type of driving. Even driving too slow can cause issues for drivers, especially on highways; it would be a good thing to campaign about staying within a few miles of the speed limit, give or take a few.

I have never personally been in a car accident, but I have witnessed many car crashes in my lifetime. I remember specifically one time when I was on my way home from a high school golf match, I was heading back to my high school to return the trophy and take a picture with my teammates. When I was driving past one intersection that was on the way to the high school from the golf course, I saw two cars that I thought were familiar to me. As I got closer I recognized one of the cars to be one of my good friends at the time, and the other was another girl I knew from my high school. When I finally got close enough to see who was standing next to the car, I saw that it was my friend’s parents, but not my friend. As I kept driving past I could only think of the worst of the situation, and began to spiral into what happened and why. That’s when I remembered that the same morning, the high school girl’s golf team had a match at the same time and place as us, just on the back nine instead of the front. When the rest of my team got back to the high school, we all talked about what we saw and how worried we all were, as we all knew the two girls who we suspected were involved in the crash. I kept texting my friend hoping that she was okay and that I just could not see her when I drove past the first time, and she eventually answered me. I felt so relieved to know that she was alright, and the crash was in fact not her fault; it was the fault of the other girl on the golf team. The other girl had run the stop sign when my friend was cruising down the road and hit her on the passenger side. There was also an incident a few years ago when three people I knew from high school got in a car crash, and all three of them almost died. I was on vacation at the time when my mom saw what had happened online and told me about it. Even though I was not friends with those kids, it would be an extremely weird feeling to know that three people from your school were going to be gone forever. Thankfully, that did not happen and everyone is almost all the way back to normal now.

Although I am already a generally safe driver, there are still steps that I can take in order to make everything safer for myself and my passengers, when I have any. One thing is to make sure the music is not too loud, as that can be distracting and may not allow you to hear sirens if something is going on in that area. Also, making sure to keep my eyes on the road at all times, no matter if my friends want me to look at them for a quick second to see something. Looking away from the road, even for a split second, can result in the deaths of everyone in the car if you cannot see something coming at you. All in all, there have been too many deaths related to driving, and this has gotten out of hand in recent years even moreso.