Careful is better than quick

Driving cars is something that I always avoided when I was younger. I always found that my anxiety spiked when talking about the topic. “You want to drive today?” my sister would ask, “no” I would respond. I never fully trusted myself when it came to driving and that changed more just recently. You never know how fast you can be in accidents until you are in one, looking at the damage just in shock and despair. Realizing that what just happened may have totaled your car, maybe you hit someone or someone hit you. Either way, it’s not ideal to handle and never a happy situation. This is especially common in teenagers. The #1 cause for killing teenagers is car accidents, not suicide, not cancer, but car accidents. You hear about stories all the time but do your best to make sure you are not in one of those situations.

As I said previously, my trust in myself when driving has shot down dramatically. This is due to a recent incident where I had to move a car that was behind my mother’s so she could go to the grocery store. When she asked me to move the car, I happened to have been eating at some McDonald’s. Personally, I never liked doing any other tasks aside from eating when having a meal. Not to mention how there were other people in the house, she just proceeded to ask me. The next moments happened all too fast, I got into the car and right before I began backing out my mother asked me if I could do it and I responded “yeah” with a reassuring tone. Little did I know that I was not able to back out without hitting something. That “something” happened to be my uncle’s truck. I had hit my uncle’s truck with my aunt’s van. As soon as it happened, I got out of the car, ran to my mother who was still sitting in the driveway and told her what happened. She got out of her car herself, and went to check the incident, I had indeed hit my uncle’s headlight and dented my aunt’s van.

My reaction did not take too long to arise, my anxiety spiked so much, I started crying uncontrollably, realizing I had just damaged both of their cars. My uncle came right after the incident and went to check the damage, his words were “don’t worry about that baby.” Of course, in my reaction, that’s all I was doing. And I say this to say, check your mirrors and be careful. You never know when you could miss something or someone. Driving is a tricky situation but it’s best that someone more experienced should be performing a certain task. This includes backing out, parking, driving on the highway and other situations as well.

In my junior year of high school, my mother would take me to school every morning and what we would see would be teenagers on the side of the road, in a car accident. The traffic was always horrible and most of the time, accidents were the reason for that. I also joined a club in my junior year, a mental health club. There, I met the leader/creator of the club, and her name was Lana. She was super nice and welcoming, and I always thought of her as someone super cool. I would see her walking with her friends in the morning, thinking “that’ll be me next year as a senior.” Well Lana graduated from high school but wasn’t alive too much longer after that. In November 2024, Lana was reported dead in a fatal car accident. She was a college freshman, who I’m sure had big dreams and was meant to do big things. However, God had a different plan for her.

When I found out that she died, I was of course shocked and surprised. Lana wasn’t the type of girl to die, she was active and innovative in her life, she was meant to graduate college, get married and have kids. I didn’t know her personally, but being around me was something that felt brighter. Her parents will never see her walk down the aisle or see her home on the holidays. This goes to show

how fast life is, how quickly your life can change and what can happen instantly. I urge you to learn how to drive early! Don’t waste time on how I did, in a rush to learn how to drive in such a small amount of time. It’s not embarrassing to get your license in senior year, it’s not embarrassing to get your license outside of high school. Be careful and be aware of your surroundings to protect yourself and loved ones.