Changing Drivers Education to Reduce Reckless Driving

Driver education is crucial for any individual to experience as it describes how to drive a vehicle, read road signs, and behave safely on the road. In a perfect world, everyone who has taken driver’s education and passed should be fully capable of driving safely on the road. Unfortunately, this is not the world that we live in and many individuals with drivers licenses tend to engage in dangerous behaviors when on the road. Many of these individuals make poor decisions that either can or do lead to the deaths of themselves and others. Although many of these poor decisions and behaviors are due to an individual’s lack of common sense, I believe that driver’s education programs should modify their curriculums so that individuals can be more effectively educated so that the amount of reckless drivers on the road can be reduced. I believe that this can be done by giving students the opportunity to get familiar with what they read in their driving textbooks through experience with each road sign, allowing students to practice on more challenging roads such as highways and dirt roads, and by making the driving tests more challenging.

The first way in which driver education could be improved to reduce the number of deaths related to driving, is by allowing students to gain first hand experience with each of the road signs that they may encounter. This might look like printing out paper versions of a sign and quizzing the class about what the sign means or allowing the students to practice hand signals with each other in a simulated driving experience. I believe doing this would allow individuals to become more familiar with the signs they see on the road and become more familiar with other important aspects of driving. From my personal experience, driver education did not help me get too familiar with road signs even though I read about each one in the textbook. I believe that this is due to the fact that I did not have an opportunity to test my knowledge on these signs during my education. Another example that supports this change in curriculum relates to one of my parents’ driving ability. I have noticed that my parent drive a little irresponsibly in the sense that they sometimes go up to 20 mph over the speed limit. Allowing driver students to get familiar with going under the speed limit may reduce situations like this as they will be conditioned to not allow others to force them to go over the speed limit. By modifying the course materials in this way, future deaths related to driving will be prevented.

The next way in which to improve the drivers education system would be by giving students more experience on different roads with different conditions. From my experience, when I went on practice rides with a driving instructor they would often only direct me to drive through neighborhoods. This does not allow an individual to become a better driver as driving at a low speed while there are only a few cars around you at a time will not help you become a better driver. Those that offer driver education should require that students practice on highways and dirt roads as well as major roads with varying conditions. This will allow a student to become far more confident in their ability to drive and they will become less likely to make dangerous decisions while on the road. I know this method would have been a major help to me when I was taking driver’s education as I would have been more confident in my driving ability by the end of my education. There also needs to be a way in which outside of school driving hours can be tracked as many parents simply sign off on driving hours that the student did not do. Without a way to prevent this many students may be able to just barely pass the driving test with little to no knowledge on how to be a safe driver. By allowing students to practice on more challenging roads, they will become better equipped to drive in varying conditions which will in turn reduce future driving related deaths.

The final way in which to improve driver’s education is by making the written and physical driving tests more challenging. The physical driving test I experienced was way too easy as I was only driving through neighborhoods as well as roads with little to no cars on them. This is not an accurate way to test someone’s ability to drive safely as their ability to drive on different roads with varying numbers of cars is not tested. The physical test allows individuals with very little driving experience to obtain a license which in turn increases the number of reckless drivers on the road. Besides the physical driving test needing improvement, the written one also needs to be improved as well. The written test does not require that an individual know all of the most commonly used information, such as the meaning of road signs, the test only requires that you know some of the information required for being a safe driver. This could allow an individual who knows very little about driving to pass the test and obtain a license. This makes for a poor combination with the physical driving test as a student is given an easy path to a license without actually needing to know much about driving. By improving these tests, the number of reckless drivers will be heavily reduced.

In conclusion, driver education plays a crucial role in reducing the number of deaths on the road. It teaches individuals how to drive properly and how to read road signs which can allow them to be a safer driver. Despite its purpose, driver education often does not do a good enough job of producing safe drivers. By improving the curriculum taught, allowing students to gain more driving experience, and improving the driving tests will help driver education work more effectively. Those who have already passed driver’s education, such as myself can still take steps to drive safely and help others drive safely. I personally ensure that I never use my phone when driving and I set an example for those around me so that they can become a safer driver. All in all, these are the ways in which driver education can be improved upon.