Isom 2025 Drivers Ed Essay

When individuals reach the right age to start driving, they often rush to get a driver’s license. Whether it is for purely utility sake, or to be the coolest kid on campus, they want to finally stand out and be independent from their peers. However, along this journey, these soon to be adults disregard the education it takes to drive safely. In this way, education is an undervalued factor in today’s society, especially when it relates to vehicles. Where this tendency to overlook the complex nature of learning how to drive has the potential to end in lethal results. Thus, having a solid educational foundation for driving and continuing to grow upon it allows people to make more sensible decisions and possibly solve societally ingrained issues at a fundamental level. This can be seen in my personal experience relating to vehicle related accidents.

During my time as an Environmental Science and Policy Major, I learned a lot about social science and economic values like the cost effective analysis graph. This type of figure illustrates a willingness to pay over the benefit to society with two different scenarios intersecting. Depending on the subject, people either want the most beneficial effect or the cheapest solution which then meets in the middle where the two intersect and is considered the optimal point for making decisions. In the same way, a similar idea can be used for resources spent over effectiveness for the education needed for driving a vehicle. Where people who learn on their own often have the cheapest but least effective education while people who study often pay more for a better understanding. This leads to the strong correlation that the same people who tend to avoid the extra expenses often are involved in vehicular accidents. Therefore, the people who take the extra time in their education and with learning how to drive are safer on the road. This is due to a variety of factors including proper training, knowledge of timings and certain techniques, and how to properly diagnose certain issues relating to the car to be safer on the road. I can personally relate to these factors because I took driver’s ed when I was learning how to drive, and feel relatively safer than my peers. Where I know how to drive my car in different scenarios and different concepts like velocitation in order to control my environment to the best of my ability. Moreover, I have been in the back seat before when my friends are driving and it can be pretty scary. Especially since they haven’t had the same level of education and say things like “I’ve never had a problem doing double the speed limit on corners.” They take the mandatory rules and refer to them as suggestions just because they want to get to their destination faster. I feel like this recklessness has to do with their age and lack of experience, but still, it is probably one of the factors that lead to lethal accidents. In this way, the best way to reduce deaths related to vehicles is to not only have a more extensive driving education but also follow the rules of the road to a reasonable level even if they don’t do things like driver’s ed. If it were to be applied at a state or nationwide scale, this level should be heavily incentivized instead of a discount on car insurance in order to make the roads safer. This would not only make an individual’s driving skills better, but also save lives in the process. Additionally, I can make a difference in this area by working at SOU. In particular, I am currently a part of the honors program, and in its requirements, we are not only required to volunteer but also explore our community, do internships, and take the lead on certain projects that could help our community. I could take the steps to create the opportunity for the college to create a drivers ed program. This would provide the school with another program to offer students and allow the roads in the town to be overall safer. In total, risk when it comes to driving comes down to knowledge and experience. When these aspects are more available while at a decreased cost, it will decrease the amount of deaths resulting from accidents.

Education is more than just the primary subjects like math and science. It is layers of personal growth and independence that get integrated and developed over time to allow true decisions. Without these implicit lessons, the units a student learns are often never used and forgotten over time. Thus, education must be prioritized despite the costs in order to assist communities with foundational issues like vehicular accidents. If this higher level of investment in safety is accomplished nationwide, then more people would be safe overall and the costs would pay for itself in the long run. Making it so people who are learning how to drive or people who wish to learn more should do the following: take drivers ed related courses, follow the rules of the road, and know the costs of being reckless.