Behind the Wheel

Teen Driver Safety: A Personal Reflection on the Importance of Education and Safe Driving:

Looking back on four years of growth and learning I can’t help but think about how in these four years I’ve learned and grown the most. Perhaps the most vital lesson has been the necessity of safe driving. Teen driver safety is a big, public, concern, and an issue that is very close to home for me and my peers. In fact, it may be very difficult to avert one’s eyes from the statistics behind how often young drivers are involved in accidents. At the same time, it’s easy to forget how dangerous the roadway can be while you’re still learning the ropes. My own experiences behind the wheel and specifically witnessing the experiences of others have driven home the importance of education, self-awareness, and responsibility when it comes to driving.

Why Teen Driver Safety Is Always In Season:

Improving teen driver safety is especially important due to the unique dangers posed to and by young drivers. I think back to how thrilled I was on getting my initial permit. For most teens, obtaining a driver’s license doesn’t just symbolize freedom from dependence on parents. It represents the exhilaration of newfound independence and the power to roam free. What a lot of teens, including me, don’t fully understand is the risk that freedom entails. At home in my state, car accidents are the number one killer of teens, and from what I’ve seen—they go south fast. Inexperience, distractions, overconfidence on the road—all of these things can quickly make a short drive an unexpected long-term tragedy.

I still vividly recall my first drive alone. I was definitely nervous and excited, but mostly excited. My parents had loaned me the car for the day, and I was driving to catch up with friends. My heart was beating—not just because I was driving solo, but because I didn’t think I was really prepared for the responsibility of the whole situation. It wasn’t until afterwards, once I returned home, that I understood how many small errors I made—going too fast in certain zones, distracted by the environment around me and not reading the road as well as I could have, or pausing too long at a stop sign. I understood that had I been more in a complex or threatening environment, my inexperience might have markedly increased the likelihood of an accident.

What Teen Drivers Are Up Against:

The greatest dangers to teen drivers are the same dangers I experienced when I first got my license—distractions, peer pressure, and inexperience. The one aspect that may be most challenging for young drivers to confront is the urge to conform, to impress, or to engage in risky behavior that feels exciting in the moment. More than any single experience, I’ve just seen my friends — literally and virtually — egg each other on to drive faster, to race to be the first to arrive somewhere, to text while driving “just this once.” Every time I have to go through these situations, I need to tell myself that even though it looks like everyone else is going for it, it’s not worth the danger.

There’s one experience, in particular, that really sticks out. A few months ago, I was riding in a car with a friend who just got her license. We were driving on a two-lane road, and she was texting and driving. She assumed she would be able to multitask, as I continued to try to focus my gaze on the road, I began realizing that we were dangerously swerving and tailgating the car ahead of us. Once, she nearly sped through a red light under driverless mode due to inattention. We were almost in a major collision, and I was scared to death by that. When we finally found a spot to pull over, I asked her if she knew how dangerous that was, and she responded, “No, it’s ok, I do this all the time.” On a personal level, that moment was a wake-up call. It just made me think that if I were driving myself, how in that split second of distraction, checking your phone, loud music, friends in the car, all of that stuff is so distracting. In that moment, I made a pledge to myself that I would not allow those distractions to consume me.

Peer pressure and the desire to fit in are additional forces that can play a role in shocking behavior behind the wheel of your teen. I’ve experienced it myself first hand, with friends who test the limits, speeding or trying to take shortcuts just to impress others. Not too long ago, I was riding with some friends in the backseat of an Uber, when one of them proposed that we catch a ride up to a party happening in another town not far away. The route was very long, and it was darkening. The driver, just like our urgent driver who was so motivated to be first to the potential party in our first scenario, experienced the urge to speed because other vehicles on the roadway were speeding. Everyone else was laughing, I could feel my stomach starting to churn. I pleaded with her to slow down, but she swatted me aside, confidently dismissing me with, “No worries, we’ll get there quicker going this way.” It doesn’t seem like a big interaction, but it showed me how fast a situation could turn in the other direction. Fortunately, we avoided disaster, but it served as a lesson that the urge to “go with the flow” can easily lead us to ignore important dangers and that’s when things go wrong.

The impact of driver’s education on teen safety is incalculable. I still recall my driver’s ed class in high school as if it were yesterday. As an 11-year-old, I wasn’t thrilled about having to attend lectures or workshop-style video tutorials, but in retrospect, those lessons were crucial. Driver’s ed didn’t just make me a master of the stop sign, it made me a disciple of the laws they enforce. I didn’t just learn to drive. I learned the value of defensive driving, what to do in a situation with hazardous conditions, how to pay attention to my surroundings all the time. I vividly recall the driving simulations we went through in class where I learned how to respond when caught unawares in an emergency situation. Short of entirely flipping the switch on my driving habits, I know that the accumulation of everything above is already having a palpable impact on how I drive today — even if it felt like a feast of information to digest at the time.

Education alone is not sufficient. It’s not enough to just know the rules — you have to actively decide to practice them, day in and day out. As teens, we must be accountable for what we do while driving. I’ve watched countless friends suffer from the illusion of invincibility, or the idea that minor infractions are irrelevant or acceptable. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned though, is that every decision matters. Whether it’s a driver’s choice not to text and drive or a decision to slow down when conditions are inclement, those decisions will save lives.

What actions should we take:

As teens, we have the power to make the roads safer and set an example by committing to safe driving habits and keeping each other accountable. We can come together as a society and decide that no matter what, we won’t use our phones while driving, we won’t drive drunk, and we’ll wear our seatbelts. We can use that same energy to call out our pals when they’re putting everyone’s safety at risk with their dangerous driving decisions. If someone is texting while they drive, they’re speeding, or they’re otherwise endangering themselves and others, we could remind them of the real-life consequences in a way that makes them help make better choices.

Together with the addition of expanded licensing opportunities, schools can’t just roll back and take their driver’s ed offerings for granted. In short, schools should offer more than just practical driving skills. It needs to be an emotional and mental discussion, too—how to respond to peer pressure, how to manage distractions, how to drive defensively. There are other roles communities can play, from running campaigns to promote safe driving to providing parents with educational resources to working with local law enforcement agencies to provide enforcement of safe driving laws.

Safe driving habits should be an individual responsibility, but they don’t have to be individualistic. Families, schools, and communities can share responsibility for improving safe driving habits. By continuing to educate ourselves, hold each other accountable, and lead by example, we can all play a role in making our roads safer for everyone—especially for inexperienced drivers like me.