Teenage Driver Turmoil

Obtaining a license and a car is without a doubt I right of passage in our society for teenagers. A degree of freedom comes with being able to take yourself wherever you want to go almost whenever you want to. That freedom makes people excited when they’re experiencing it for the first time like teen drivers; and with excitement comes a lack of attention to detail and safety. There is a reason why car crashes are the leading cause of death in teenager 16-19. Teenage driver safety is a paramount public issue because it jeopardizes our youth, other people on the road, and the surrounding community. It is an issue of the public because reform must be made to better equip teenagers with the knowledge and skill necessary to be safe and confident drivers. Driver education must be taken more seriously on the part of teenagers and more thorough on the part of the educator.

There are a multitude of challenges that teen drivers face today. First and foremost, lack of experience is the most profound. In some states, such as Georgia where I live, a defensive driving course is not required to obtain a license. When I went through the process of getting my license, I of course learned the rules of the road and how to operate on the road safely. What I did not learn was how act when other drivers drive sporadically and how to prevent an accident or minimize damage. This is difficult to prevent because every situation on the road can be different and there is no way to plan for driver negligence, spending more time in a controlled environment to practice driving could prove beneficial. Early in my career on the road I was in a car accident trying to pull out into oncoming traffic. I wasn’t aware the road I was turning onto had 2 lanes and didn’t check for cars coming in the lane I couldn’t see and I T-boned another car. The thought simply didn’t occur to me and that was due to lack of experience and caution. Another one of the biggest challenges that coincides with lack of experience is anxiety on the road. Not having experience driving most likely makes teenagers scared and more prone to accidents because they aren’t able to keep their wits about them when faced with certain traffic conditions. Such was the case for me in multiple instances. Driving on the highway or with aggressive and fast drivers can make teenagers anxious and forgetful of safety protocols. Inexperience coupled with the sometimes fast-paced tendencies of other drivers makes new drivers scared. One way to overcome this pitfall is to be more intentional and thorough with practice. Instead of going any and everywhere the moment one gets a license and car make sure you are fully prepared. Even avoid the highway at first and practice driving on neighborhood roads before hitting the city. Increasing the pace and uncertainty of the environment in which you drive and not immediately jumping in the deep end can make a world of difference in your comfortability driving.

Safer driving habits in our youth is something that must be improved at the institutional level as well as at home. The process of obtaining a license should be more thorough. It should be a requirement for drivers ED to allocate time and resources to give students at least the opportunity to drive with an instructor, similar to how it is at the high schools that offer driver’s ED. Secondly, a defensive drivers course should integrated into the normal course required for everyone to take, and to reiterate, an opportunity to put the lessons of that course in practice. At home, parents can limit the places that their child are able to go until they have a few weeks of experience and are somewhat comfortable behind the wheel. It is also up to the parents to stress the importance of safe driving, but not in a forceful way that would make teenagers standoffish as we tend to be. Making sure they understand how dangerous driving is when you don’t take the right precautions and how important their safety is to them is paramount to the teens receptibility. As a community we can all be more cognizant of the possibility of student drivers being on the road and not drive recklessly. Just because we are comfortable behind the wheel and doubtful that we will get into an accident doesn’t mean others are the same. Driving reclined, with one hand on the wheel and swerving last second are not driving practices that make others comfortable. It is up to us a society to make teenagers more equipped to drive safely and cannot be done without the cooperation of all.