Go Karts Showed Me How Dangerous Driving Is

I am a seventeen year old girl. My mom is a veteran, she now is a college graduate in the nuclear medicine field. My mom worries about my families safety. My dad is a veteran, now he does contracting overseas. I’m not completely sure what it is that he does; he doesn’t like to talk about those personal aspects of his life. I am a lot like my dad in that way.

I was an eleven year old girl on vacation once. Scared of every single rollercoaster or ride that looked remotely fast. My mom had bad motion sickness. We wouldn’t go on the rides. I’d help mom carry my younger brother’s stuff while he and Dad went upside down and 60 miles an hour on a carnival ride. I was careful. They were reckless. They wanted to do Go Karts, I said no. I changed my mind last second and got in the line for Go Karts with them. Mom stayed behind. They got a kart together and I was alone.

That was my very first driving experience. It was also my very first driving accident.

I drove into the wall. I had no idea how to control this thing! What was I thinking? Mom was worried I broke my glasses frames. Dad was worried I wasn’t going to handle being behind the wheel in the real world. I am a lot like my dad in that way.

“You’re going to have to drive one day!” My mom lectured me.

I was a fifteen year old girl in a new town now. Over the years that had passed, my parents had traded in my first car for my “new” first car. A 2011 E550 Mercedes-Benz. It had been mine for years, but now I could finally get behind the wheel with my permit. I was an anxious homebody. Cars had no appeal to me, let alone driving. What’s the point of driving since everything is closed down for Covid anyways?

I didn’t get my permit until I was sixteen.

It looked easy enough. Dad would drive backwards in the neighborhood all the time. 10 or 15 miles an hour, no need for him to turn his head. He was a natural. Mom cuts down our commute time in half when we need. No sweat. Plus, there was no way I could survive taking the bus all through High School. I was going to study that drivers manual until I could drive in my sleep! I took the test a month before the scheduled appointment. I was ready to drive all over town; the four-way, over railroads, the highway, the backroads, even the traffic circle.

The driving instructor gets in my car. I drive to the storage unit a few feet away from the DMV. Made a U-turn. Went back to the DMV. Parked.

“That’s it? That’s the test?”

I was scared to death to drive behind the wheel. My test was basically nothing, how was he so sure that I could get on the interstate and drive 70 – 80 miles an hour? All I did was make a U-turn in a parking lot!

That test alone gave me a slap in the face about the reality of driving. Some people get behind that wheel without even touching the driver’s manual, make a simple U-turn, and get their license handed to them on a silver platter. How many people passed that simple test and are now a danger to others on the road because they can’t read certain signs or properly gauge the space between cars in their mirrors? The car related death rate has skyrocketed as of late, and improper driving evaluations may play a large part in that problem. When driving instructors get lazy and don’t properly evaluate how suitable an individual is to drive on the road, they produce drivers that have an incomplete knowledge of road rules and risky driving habits.

I am a seventeen year old teenage girl who is in love with driving her car. Driving gives me so much freedom. I can work, hang out with friends, go after school for club activities, listen to my music as loud as I want to, and go out with my boyfriend. My car is beautiful. She sounds great, she handles great, she’s perfect. She’s been backed into, scratched, chipped, and scrapped. I hadn’t been in any real car accidents, fender benders, or hit and runs. I haven’t been driving for a full year, but sometimes I act like my parents. Backing into my school parking lot without looking. Cutting my commute to work when I’m late. Forgetting to check my mirrors when changing lanes. If the driving instructor had been in my car to see that, would they have taken points off and let me improve my skills a little more?

I backed into a car after watching the Barbie movie. There was no damage to either vehicle. At least, none that I could see. My mom brought it up once, that it looked like someone backed into my bumper.

“Well, you know, hit and runs happen all the time in the school parking lot. I never noticed anything, though.”

I’ve lied to my mom a million times. Everyone has. I’m not proud of it, it’s just a thing that happens! I can’t admit that I’m an incompetent driver, my ego won’t let it happen. I’m a lot like my dad in that way.

Two of my close friends, and my boyfriend, have been in driving accidents. Last year, a classmate backed into my boyfriend’s car and tried to pressure him into taking fault for it. He wasn’t properly educated on road rules and took the blame, even though he had the right of way. I grilled him for it, had he known the proper rules of the road he could’ve been spared the wrath of his parents and the insurance companies. My junior friend was driving on the interstate and another driver rear ended her going 80 miles an hour. They were distracted; on their phone, singing, I don’t know. Just distracted. I could have lost a friend that day. She is still recovering minor head and back injuries from it. Did that guy’s driving instructor make him do a U-turn too? My other junior friend was distracted on the way to school and rear ended our music teacher. Both juniors’ cars were totaled. They took the same test I did.

Every time an incident has happened to those close to me, I have made it a point to correct those poor driving behaviors in myself. I connect my Bluetooth before driving, then put my phone into the side door for minimal distraction. I make all my seat adjustments before I turn the car on. I turn the music down when approaching four ways and traffic lights. I text my family group chat that I’m driving so they don’t try and text me. It’s the small changes that can lead to a big impact. I started to listen to more radio, that way I wouldn’t have to get my phone out at all!

My brother turns fifteen this year. He is a trouble maker. He fights, has a big mouth, and is known to jump the gun. He will be a disaster behind the wheel. I try to set a good example when I drive him to school. I dug up my old driver’s manual to give him. It’s highlighted and annotated, there are sticky notes on every page. I doubt he’ll read it, but I hope he will at least take practice test drives with me so I can help him do more than just a U-turn for his license.

Operating a 5-ton metal machine with the capacity to move 100 miles an hour is a dangerous tool to give an unsupervised sixteen year old. Especially if they’re hot headed and think they can get into NASCAR after doing one U-turn. Teenagers are young, dumb, and have the attention span of toddlers. More teens need to be properly evaluated so that they are prepared for handling the lives of themselves, their passengers, and other drivers when they get behind that wheel.

They also need to be properly educated about the dangers of the road in a way that will stick. I’ve known since I was eleven that driving was dangerous because I experienced it first hand. In the eyes of bystanders, I may have just been some scared kid that didn’t know which pedal was the brake.

In the eyes of my family, I was one of the idiot drivers on the interstate that kills families because I forgot which pedal was which.

I was the ignorant driver that pushed a car out of their lane because I didn’t check my mirrors.

I was the hot head that spun out of control passing someone on a two lane highway, because I was late for work and they “weren’t going fast enough.”

I was the kid with the big head after passing my five minute drivers test with “flying colors.”