Teaching to remember

I believe the main importance in reducing driving-related deaths through driver education is to educate students on the specific dangers of driving. Teaching students the specific dangers in a meaningful way will help make sure they remember the things they’ve been taught. The meaningful way these students can be taught is through real life examples of people who have been in accidents due to these dangers. I know that when I took my Drivers Ed class at school the only part I really remember is when my teacher went through all the past students who died due to driving when they were impaired in any sort of way. This includes texting, being tired, or driving drunk or high. For example, my teacher told us about a student from my school who died behind the wheel after his parents told him to come home late after he had spent the day with a friend. He told his parents he was tired but his parents insisted that he drive home. He ended up falling asleep behind the wheel and crashing into a tree which killed him. This story has stuck with me and I don’t think I will ever forget it. More importantly this story taught me to never drive while tired or drowsy at all, if I’m tired I pull over immediately because I understand the dangers of it. I believe that learning from tragedies in the past is one of the only ways to teach kids so that they will actually take it to heart. No matter what you say to them, or how many times you say to not text and drive, they will do it. However, if you are able to scare them with real tragedies that happened to kids like them, then they might actually learn something. Fear is one of the biggest deterrents for anything and if used properly it can be used to deter kids from doing dangerous and stupid things while driving. There is definitely a way to go about this because telling kids stories like this can be traumatic especially for kids who know people who died in motor vehicle accidents. Now obviously this method would only be used in kids who are taking drivers Ed so about 15-17 which I believe is an acceptable age to teach this way. Along with the necessary teaching requirements the teacher would tell the students true stories about kids their age, who preferably went to the school so it relates to them more, who died in motor vehicle accidents from drinking, texting, etc. I think because of the good education that I received along with all of my friends we have become very safe drivers, and more schools should model their program after ours. I unfortunately had someone who went to my school that killed someone behind the wheel. This accident shook our entire school and most kids didn’t even believe it after it had happened. Sure enough though when the kid showed up the next day he told us that everything was true and that the accident wasn’t his fault so he was fine. This kid was also known for being a bit sporadic and irresponsible so not many people believed him. It was never found out whose fault the accident was but it was found out that the guy who was killed was drunk so the family did not press charges. This was kind of a wake up call for me personally that bad shit happens to people all the time and the people around me are not invincible or excluded from tragedy. One of the most important things for me to become a safer driver is to stop driving with emotions. I tend to get angry easily so when someone passes me or does something stupid in the road I tend to start driving emotionally. The most important step to improving at anything is acknowledging your flaws and now that I have done that I can take steps to improve my emotional control. As for what I can do to keep the road safer for those around me it is pretty simple, I am going into my freshman year of college so drinking and irresponsible people will be everywhere. So keeping my friends and those around me from getting on the road while impaired is the biggest thing I can do to save lives on the road. I can not only save my friends from endangering themselves but also save others on the road from being punished for other people’s irresponsible decisions.