Roadmap to a Safer Driver

“Sounds good my man, see ya soon.” A brief message, a deadly message and the last message from one driver to his friend. Although many people, young and old, may believe they are the exception to many rules, death makes no exceptions. The world is always changing and technology is accelerating at an alarming rate. As a result, new drivers, and often younger drivers, are getting behind the wheel of many different types of vehicles lacking knowledge of the road and the experience of driving. In certain situations, these factors can combine to easily take a life. However, just as easily as the combination can TAKE a life; knowledge and experience can combine to SAVE a life. Let’s take a drive and talk about it.

Our first stop is my HOMETOWN. I live in the ever-growing city of Greenville, South Carolina and consistently notice drivers from around the United States, visiting my welcoming hometown. Just as often as I see new people passing through Greenville, I see people running red lights, stop signs, and simply not paying attention and not thinking about the human lives that are in each vehicle sharing the road with them. Almost every member of my family has been impacted by an automobile accident, including myself. I’m sure my experience was not that unusual. I was alone in my car at a complete stop at a red light. The day was bright and sunny and not a drop of rain on the road. I glanced in my rear-view mirror just in time to see a tan chevy equinox barreling down the road behind me. What should I do? Just as quickly as I could blink, a million possibilities crossed my mind. I finally settled on one decision; but not just any decision. It was the one I learned in a driver’s education course my family gave me as a high school graduation gift. The safest decision was to take the impact in an effort to prevent those in the cars in front of me from being injured. Releasing a sigh of tension, I relaxed back into my seat, hands locked on the steering wheel, my left foot braced against the dead peddle, and my other foot resting on the brake. With a violent jerk, my car lurched forward but stayed a safe distance from the car in front of me as I bounced around like a ball in a pinball machine. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured…this time.

Our next stop is the current LAWS governing the privilege of driving. In my opinion, some states are allowing children to get behind the wheel instead of young adults. In my state, the road to a driver’s license can start at the age of 15. Driver’s education is mandatory and the system is graduated. First, you begin by taking a written test, passing with a score of 80 or higher to obtain your learner’s permit. Just 180 days later, as long as you have obtained 40 hours behind the wheel with 10 of those hours being nighttime driving, you can obtain a restricted driver’s license. A restricted driver’s license allows you to drive by yourself or with an adult during the daylight hours. After you have held your restricted driver’s license for 180 days without receiving a ticket or being in an accident, you can receive your full driver’s license at the age of 16 years old.

Let’s visit a while at this next stop of EDUCATION. I am a very strong believer that driving education is without a doubt, beneficial to all rising teen drivers as well as any driver who has never taken a driver’s education course before. I believe the information I learned in the name of driver’s education has certainly kept me safe on multiple occasions. A 2015 study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, followed more than 150,000 young drivers and stated that “Young drivers who have not completed driver’s education are 75 percent more likely to get a traffic ticket, 24 percent more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury accident and 16 percent more likely to have an accident”. However, driver’s education may provide some knowledge of the road, but it does address the underlining issue which is the lack of experience behind the wheel.

However, our next stop not far from education is KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge is only part of the equation when it comes to surviving on the road and dealing with the unexpected conditions that certainly will arise. When I was still a student in high school, it was a requirement to attend a driving education class offered by my school. I can still remember the story that was told that day. It was a story that highlighted the need for experience behind the wheel as well as knowledge behind the wheel. A student who struggled to overcome his past poor decisions to hang out with the wrong crowd and earn below-average grades had begun to turn his life around. He completed hours of community service in order to have some of the poor decisions removed from his record. One evening he was on his way home from the soup kitchen, when he hit a patch of black ice on a narrow road, crashed into a tree, and was killed on impact. I realize that experience is not something that can be obtained with a snap of your fingers. Many situations that occur on the road require split-second decisions that can determine if someone is injured or even killed. Indecision can be just as fatal on the road as making the wrong choice.

In an effort to make the safest spilt-decisions, let’s visit the town of EXPERIENCE. I am also a strong believer in “the best way to learn is by doing” to help foster the best spilt decisions. Because every situation on the road is different, it is important to have a grasp on what your car is doing at all times and how you could expect your car would react given certain conditions. I believe the most effective thing that could be done, is to give new drivers the chance to feel what a car actually feels like when it hits a patch of black ice, or even how it feels to slam on your brakes. As I mentioned earlier, I received a driver’s education course as a graduation gift. It was called the “Guard your Life Challenge”, a challenge that was set up by a family who lost their young daughter due to the distractions and conditions of the road. The challenge was sponsored by BMW and was a 5-hour long class that allowed all accepted applicants to drive BMW cars, under the instruction of professional drivers, in many different situations. Some of those situations taught you how to swerve around a stopped car on the interstate while applying your brakes at a second’s notice, allowed the driver to feel as if they hit black ice going through a turn by making the road slick with water, even throwing water balloons at the driver while they drove through a course to simulate distracted driving.

I am calling on corporate America to step up and offer the opportunities for such hands-on learning at a reduced cost (or even free) to young people about to start their driving experience. State and local government are important to provide incentives to business to get aboard and hopefully re-think the safety of allowing the driving experience to start a such a young age. Schools will continue to provide the education part providing the knowledge needed to produce safer drivers making the roads safer for all drivers and passengers of all ages. Media outlets as well as social media play a part in getting the word out regarding the need for change as well as the learning opportunities as they are offered.

Well, as we arrive back at my HOMETOWN where we began, I hope you will take a moment to remember all the stops we made to arrive back here safely. First, we discussed the importance of current LAWS of driving allowing those at such a young age to get behind the wheel. Next, we travelled to EDUCATION learning about just how beneficial driving education can be and then we made a pit stop at KNOWLEDGE, showcasing why knowledge is not your only friend on the journey of driving. Finally, we made our last stop at EXPERIENCE, calling on corporate America, local government, the school system and media outlets to get aboard to construct this roadway to safer driving. Ultimately, we returned safely home, experience showing us the way that we must apply the knowledge we have learned. Driving is not a simple choice of turning left or right, it is the ability to foresee all the possible outcomes and to choose the best way to get to your destination safely.