You seriously only live once

“Your cousin just died”

It was just a random Tuesday night. I was lounging on the couch reading something on Facebook, the smell of grilled fish from dinner was still in the air, and my tongue tasted sweet with blueberry chocolate, which quickly turned sour the moment my mom broke the news. I remember being so confused, asking “Who?” In disbelief. However, nothing my mom said after that remained in my head. Two days before the accident, we still texted each other about the plan for the upcoming summer vacation, and suddenly I had to come to terms with the fact that there would be no more summer plans. I sat there, still as a statue, as a million different thoughts rushed through the nooks of my brain, most of them begging the question “Why? Why why why“.

A car accident was the answer (which I only learned after it had been repeated to my face hundreds of times in the month after). My aunt, who looked like she had not had a moment of peace in a millennium, had shakily held my mom’s hands as she told us about the accident in only curt sentences and violent sobs. He was on the way home after a late practice with his soccer team. The night was dark with only dim street lights to show the way, he had forgotten to turn the headlights on. A truck was driving right beside him around the roundabout. My cousin was impatient and had too much confidence in himself, so per usual, he took a sharp turn right in front of the truck. I wondered if it had ever crossed his mind that the truck driver would not react fast enough to slow down and instead directly ram into his car, crushing both him and his car at the same time.

There was not much time before he bled out in the scrapped pile of metal and glass that used to be the car.

The reports said that the fault lay in both parties involved. The truck driver was slow to react and ignored the general rule of always driving on the same level as the one beside you, while my cousin abandoned his safety and cut the road right before them. As the cloud of resentment and grief had cleared, I confronted the harsh reality that my cousin’s lack of driving education as well as the attitude of people about driving in my country caused this tragedy.

In the previous summers that we spent together, my cousin would take me for a ride in his father’s car. He had never taken any formal driving lessons, my uncle was the one who taught him how to drive (and by teaching I mean my cousin would drive around the block as his father sat in the passenger seat and yelled instructions at him). That was painfully inadequate to be considered a driver, but at the time none of us questioned anything. I would be seated in the same passenger seat, holding a cold smoothie in one hand and unable to see anything ahead due to the overly bright sun, smiling from ear to ear as my cousin pressed the accelerator with all of his might to surpass the car ahead. With my head out of the window and my hair blown to a mess, it had never crossed my mind that we were breaking the speed limit.

Driving safely was rarely discussed as I was growing up. “Drive safely” is a common goodbye to say as we watched our friends and family members take their leave. Meanwhile, we as drivers talked about how if they were to give someone a ride, they would speed and cut the lane because that was “cool”. When another teen asked if they had a license, they would say “no” and then both would laugh it off. My cousin, of course, was one of those children. To this day, I wonder if we had been less condoning and more condemning, that night would have been different.

There are many things that I wish I could have changed, but the people of the present can not affect the past, what we need to do now is to make a change in the current driving situation to prevent accidents from reoccurring. From my own experience, a proper driving education is the start of a responsible driving habit. Outside of how to operate the car and navigate roads, the learners need to be educated about what to do in stressful circumstances such as high traffic or changing lanes on the highways, as well as reading signs and the GPS. There is little space for the try-and-true method on the road, and it will only benefit the drivers if they are informed beforehand about the situations they might face.

In addition, a learning program would not be able to fully transfer without adequate instructors and coaches. From my cousin who learned how to drive from his aggressive and reckless driving father to my mom who was only accompanied by my dad on her first time on the road, like a domino effect, drivers who had already forgotten everything they learned in driving school created new drivers with mismatched knowledge in handling the wheel. The lack of trust in formal driving education is to blame for this tendency. There are many steps to change this attitude, starting from individuals. When one signs up for driving school and takes it seriously, the family members and friends of that person would likely do the same. Besides, the schools themselves need to reach out more to attract learners.

Of course, it does not end after finishing your first program. The driving license tests are being recalled as too easy and lack the needed strictness to qualify something as life-or-death as one’s competency behind the wheel. There should be more requirements that cover a broader amount of driving knowledge both theoretically and practically, through different kinds of tests. For example, the 3D stimulation technology can be utilized to examine the driver’s ability to solve difficulties like bad weather or collision with another vehicle. Moreover, after gaining a driver’s license, one should refresh their understanding of the matter by retaking another program.

Another factor to be taken into account is how on social media platforms (where most users are the younger generations), there is barely any coverage of the deaths and injuries happening on the road. Instead, we see too many videos of teenagers running the red lights and claim it as a required experience for an “eventful” life. Ads that bring light on the horrifying statistics caused by driving should be showcased more and we as the people need to distinguish between the fictional “coolness” and reality.

My cousin cannot testify to this, however, I believe that he would have wanted me to use his story to start a change in our community. We had been praising the false freedom of breaking rules for so long that we forgot how great it is to be safe and careful. Be vocal, make your voice heard by your beloved, and tell them to treat the one time they are alive with care. Many dangers are awaiting on the roads and unforeseeable situations are bound to happen, but we cannot stop transporting, so the best we can do is to be wise with the education we take. I am going to take my first driving lesson in a local driving school in the summer before my second year, and hopefully, when I am deemed qualified for a car, I can go to the end of the roads my cousin did not get to see.