No Sleeping Behind the Wheel

Driver education is very important as it will protect people around the world. Being able to operate a motor vehicle is a privilege and should be taken seriously. When operating a car, not only your life is in jeopardy, but the lives of others around you are as well. I take driver education and safety very seriously and I believe everyone should. If people are educated on driving safety, it will reduce the number of deaths as people will understand what is and isn’t okay to perform on the road. For starters, I believe that the driver’s test should be taken seriously and not just anyone should be able to pass. If you make too many mistakes, you should have to retake it again because it is not as simple as it may seem. Yes, it would be nice to be able to drive around with your friends and peers, but what does that truly mean? Much more is involved when driving on the road. My parents told me that you are not only driving for yourself, you are driving for others. Behind the wheel, you have to pay attention to your surroundings and essential “drive” for other people because not everyone pays attention to their surroundings. Personally, I haven’t been involved in a serious accident but my parents have. For me, when my brother and I were 6 years old, my Dad was heading back home from dropping my Mom off from work. My mom works as a nurse and during this time, she was doing morning shifts and we only had one vehicle at the time. Early in the morning and tired, my Dad was driving us back to our home and he had fallen asleep behind the wheel. Thankfully where we were, we had just driven into a bush on the side of the road, but imagine if we hadn’t. What if we were on the highway or a busy intersection? For my dad again, he has had his fair share of car accidents and thankfully he has never been seriously injured, but our car however, can not say the same thing. We have lost reliable means of transportation due to these accidents. But there is one incident that truly changed my perspective on driver safety. In February 2023, my mom had to be taken to the emergency room after suffering an aneurysm in her brain. She was originally transported to Piedmont hospital but after not having any available rooms in the neuro unit, she was then transported to Grady Memorial. Due to the traumatic event, my father and I were not in the right mind at all and I honestly don’t remember much of that day as I chose to block it out. But what I do remember is the night going home. We had been in the hospital all day and had to go home due to the visiting hours being over. From where we live, the hospital was around a 45 minute drive from our home. The drive was going smoothly, until around 10 minutes into the drive, I noticed that the car began to swerve from left to right. I then realized that my dad was falling asleep behind the wheel. I began to talk to him and play music that I knew were his favorites to keep him awake, and around 30 minutes later, we arrived at home safely. But that moment made me realize that the situation could have been a lot different. What if I had fallen asleep and wasn’t there to keep him awake? What if I wasn’t in the car at all? There is a chance that neither one of us would be here today and I wouldn’t be able to write this essay right now. That is why it is so important to drive responsibly. Yes, that is my father, but I still sat him down and had a conversation with him afterwards about how I felt that night and the importance of driver safety. I explained to him that we could have stayed in a hotel nearby or stopped on the side of the road to take a nap. I made sure to express how unsafe I felt with him behind the wheel that night and I believe it made him realize how irresponsible he had been that night. Now over a year later from that night, he drives a lot better and knows his limits. If he is tired, he doesn’t push himself. Now, I am a big advocate for driving responsibly and when people around me joke about driving poorly, I make it abundantly clear that I will not be getting in that car with them. It is not funny to joke about driving irresponsibly as so many lives around them are at stake. A step I can take personally to be a better and safe driver myself is to know my limits. If I’m tired or don’t feel like driving a distance, I won’t or will at least take a nap on the side of the road to gain energy then drive. It is not fair to put people around me in danger due to my recklessness. With other people around me, I can educate them on the importance of driver safety and help put in perspective how dangerous it is driving on the road irresponsibly. I could do it by talking about my personal experience with irresponsible drivers or make up a scenario with them instead to understand the gravity of the situation. This is why driving education is important and I will continue to educate people around me to help further prevent deaths relating to this issue.