DMV Essay

Since the dawn of time there have been questions that have caused great philosophers to go insane. Such questions as ‘Where do we come from?’, ‘Why are we here?’, and obviously ‘How do I pronounce caramel?’ Since I am no great thinker, I have not been tasked with answering those life altering questions, but rather questions about the scariest thing to teenagers besides chores, driving.

When it comes to drivers’ ed most teenagers have the same thing in common. We tend to get distracted in class since the questions are often outdated and our teachers are relatively unentertaining. That is not to say that the people instructing us aren’t trying, but the material they give us is for a much lower level, so our brains aren’t stimulated enough to learn. For example, in my driving school we spent a whole day talking about what the lights on a traffic signal meant, even though the entirety of my class was 15 or older and we already knew that material. Which is why we all struggled to pay attention. Then we get on the road after barely passing our tests and we get to a sign we had seen a hundred times on our practice tests, but since we never studied, we have no idea what it means. We could be lucky and have the main issue with our driving be not knowing signs, or it could be more serious like not knowing how to counter steer. This means that if the classes had better material and we teenagers paid better attention in class, the odds of us getting into potentially fatal car accidents would be greatly reduced.

As a teenage boy, I can attest to the fact that the best part about driving is going from a dead stop to the speed limit as fast as I can. However, one morning before practice I hit a pothole on a slippery road and hydroplaned all the way across the highway and ended up facing the other direction. Thankfully it was early enough in the morning that there weren’t very many cars on the road, but if was any later in the day it could have been a serious accident. If the driving schools had a curriculum with more focus on safe driving rather than just teaching the bare minimum, there would be a lower chance of people getting into car accidents and therefore a lower fatality rate from car accidents.

I think that an important step towards making our roads safer is showing drivers how important it is to pay attention to the road. When one of my friends was driving with another friend and I, we were all talking and joking. However, because he was distracted, he ran a stop sign. Thankfully there was no one around but if there had been he could have gotten into a serious accident. Though I am absolutely certain it is not just him who had done this. The amount of people I see on their phones while they are driving is easily in the thousands. Naturally they have likely gotten into accidents or ran through red lights or stop signs. If we put emphasis on how truly dangerous distracted driving is, we can greatly reduce accidents and fatalities on our roads.

Another issue I see on the roads is aggressive driving. I would be able to walk from Peru to Canada if each step represented a single time someone has cut me off in traffic. Most drivers, regardless of age, seem to think that they have the right of way even when they do not. I have been almost run off the road by people who were too stubborn to let me move over. It isn’t just people who drive regular vehicles either. I have almost gotten into accidents because of 18 wheelers who try to change lanes without looking in their mirrors or by pulling onto the highway when there’s barely enough room for me to brake in time. If we teach drivers that they are not the most important person in the world and that other people need to be on the roads too, and to show courtesy, we could limit the number of fatal crashes on the road.

The main thing I think that would help improve the safety of drivers on our roads is making a mandatory retest for your license. Some people get their license at 16 and never have to retake it. I doubt that someone 60 years old can have the reaction time needed in order to break in case of an emergency. Which is why making everyone retake their driving test once every 5 to 10 years will undoubtedly decrease the number of crashes on our roads.

I conclude that by updating the material we are tested on, by increasing the practicality of our testing, and increasing testing frequency, we can eliminate the vast majority of accidents on the roads. This will make a better and safer place for us to live in, and for our children to grow up in.