Behind the Wheel: Our Choices Impact More than Ourselves

In the flash of a few seconds, I realized I was going to get hit. I had nowhere to go to get out of the way, and all I could do was grab my swollen, 30-something weeks pregnant belly and tell my baby we would be okay, while frantically honking my horn in the hopes that he would look up from his phone and try to slow down to lessen the impact.

It was a rainy night that March, and as I was driving through a road construction zone, I noticed that the person driving behind me was extremely distracted by his phone. I hoped he would put it down, but decided to take extra measures just in case. When traffic came to a standstill, I stopped about 20 feet behind the car in front of me to give a buffer zone, as there was nowhere else to go with construction on both sides, and crossed my fingers that he would put the phone down. As soon as I realized that he was not going to do so, and that he was not going to stop in time, I protectively grabbed my pregnant stomach and honked my car’s horn out of desperation to get him to at least slow down enough to soften the impact. It didn’t work. My car was shoved 20 feet into the car in front of me, and I ended up in the hospital with signs of premature labor just a short time later. My son thankfully stayed in for a few more weeks and was born full-term and healthy. I still get chills when I think about how differently it could have turned out if I had stopped with less space and hit the car in front of me even harder.

When I look back on that night, I am reminded of how important defensive driving is. Without my instinct telling me to take precautions, I have no doubt that I would’ve been closer to the car in front of me, hit them a lot harder after being hit myself, and possibly lost my child from the impact. We cannot make the right choices for other drivers, but we can certainly make defensive choices to mitigate or lessen the consequences of poor decisions. Safe driving is not just about ourselves but about taking care of everyone else on the road as well.

Driver education programs help to reduce the number of driving incidents and deaths by teaching new drivers about traffic safety laws, good habits of driving, how to drive defensively, and the development of overall driving skills. Because split-second decisions are a crucial part of driving, having an education course to teach the basics of driving helps people be ready to make those instant decisions for their safety and the safety of those they are sharing the road with. I remember my mom (who is a mother of 6) telling me that she could tell the difference in driving skills between her kids who had gone through a driver education course and those who had not. This testament alone speaks volumes about the importance of education courses for new drivers.

Technology plays a huge role in distracted driving. As I shared in my story, technology was the reason for my premature labor and hospital stay while pregnant with my middle child. It is so easy to pick up a phone and glance at a text, but even if we think it is fast, those few seconds of distraction are all it takes for an accident to happen. To prevent myself from being tempted by my phone, I often use the do not disturb feature, and I am grateful for its invention.

It is easy to say that to reduce the number of outcomes of unsafe driving, we just must follow the driving laws put into place, but that alone does not eliminate the problem. This is where education comes in. It is often in human nature to try and find reasons for things like guidelines and rules to not apply to us specifically or to think we can get around them in certain situations. Education on any subject that is factual and does not shy away from the very real consequences of not following certain guidelines, laws, and practices is what can truly leave a lasting impact on a person’s driving skills and willingness to be responsible. Making driver education courses mandatory for new drivers before getting their license would only benefit the safety of the roads as a whole, as we would have more drivers who know and understand the impact of their choices while driving, and hopefully would have fewer drivers making poor decisions that affect their safety and the safety of those around them. Offering free refresher courses for adults to take would also be a good way to remind drivers of the impact of their choices and habits while driving.

Unsafe driving is a multi-faceted, complex subject that is a result of more reasons and situations than we can count, but that does not mean we cannot make a difference for countless people and save countless lives by helping them change their driving habits.