The Price of Inexperience

I remember that feeling, it was so sudden I didn’t know what happened until it was too late. The loud bang still rings in my ear. The pressure in my chest still has a loose grip on me. The intense nerves almost come back to my body thinking about it. At first, I couldn’t think about my feelings, I was concerned about everyone else. It wasn’t until I was shivering that I shifted my trembling body weight onto a rock where I faced the disaster I created staring straight at me. I wished that none of it was real. I hoped that this was just a bad dream. Unfortunately, my story isn’t unique, too many people share this dreadful experience. Car accidents are one of the leading causes of deaths and injuries. To avoid frightening events like car crashes or any potential misdemeanors on the road we can take precautions and set helpful tools to spare others from avoidable suffering.

Surprisingly there were no screams. In the movies, they made it out to be this moment of complete terror. In reality, at the moment of the accident, I felt as if everything was slow despite the 45-mile-an-hour car that raced into the side of my car as I tried to make it across the street. This accident was caused because I wasn’t properly educated on the laws of the road. The nerves were intense. I kept second-guessing myself as I took my driver’s test. I made the wrong move to take a left turn on a solid green light as incoming traffic was approaching. I thought oh they will yield unaware that I was supposed to yield, not them. As my glass-like eyes full of tears looked at the aftermath, feelings of regret, stupidity, and great sorrow plagued my mind. I felt this great deal of fear because I could have been the reason for several deaths, it could have been much worse. Thankfully no one died but with how severe my crash was it was a miracle there were only minor injuries to the drivers and passengers in each car. This experience made me realize the impact that an accident like this can have and how important it is to educate yourself and ensure you are 100% confident before getting behind the wheel.

It took me weeks to build up the confidence to get back behind the wheel after causing a tragedy. I eventually did and had the opportunity to be taught by a professional driving teacher after having been taught by my parents before the accident. I learned a lot, necessary information, and additional tips that would improve my skills. This reminded me exactly how important it is to ensure the education of all drivers. When drivers are fully educated they can make better choices in uncertain situations. This allows them to make intelligent moves that avoid collisions that can result in serious injury or death. After I had lessons with my instructor I noticed that I take a lot less risky moves and feel more confident and comfortable on the road because I know the road rules.

Practical ways to reduce the number of deaths related to driving are many. One effective solution is requiring permit education to be taught in person at high schools, rather than online. This would profoundly increase the competency of young drivers. It’s very easy to “hack the system” when doing online education. It’s simple to skim over the articles and then use outside help on quizzes by using multiple devices. This gives them a false sense of knowledge, leading to poor driving habits. By having the students take their permitted education in a traditional classroom it reduces distractions and the test gives a more accurate score of students’ knowledge which correlates to better driving skills.

Another major issue with permit drivers is that many illegally drive alone without a licensed adult. You’d be surprised at the amount of kids I know who have done this. This problem is a gateway to many disasters happening that can lead to deaths. Many authorities can’t detect this issue because there is no way to indicate it. A simple solution would be to require permit drivers to display a sign on their car until they earn their license. This would force the permit holders to obey the law more which would create better driving habits and allow police to pick out those individuals who are putting themselves and other drivers more at risk.

A solution that will help all of the public to avoid automobile-related deaths is to mandate safety features on all cars. This would include tools like cameras, sensors, automatic emergency brakes (AEB), and lane departure warnings. The cameras will help to make blindspots more visible which decreases the risk of hitting another car and the sensors will detect cars that are too close. Having lane departure warnings to inform drivers when they are drifting into other lanes will help reduce cars hitting one another, inherently avoiding crashes. In scenarios of emergency having AEB brakes could save lives due to the car’s fast reaction time.

Car accidents are events we never want to see but unfortunately, they are inevitable so we have to be prepared. Most importantly we should try our best to set precautions to avoid such instances. One thing that we all can do is to inform ourselves. Making sure we are up to date on new road laws in our local areas is a key component to ensuring our safety. To create safety within our communities we can encourage good driving behavior to our friends and family. If you know that a friend isn’t emotionally stable, thinking irrationally, or might be intoxicated, maybe suggest driving instead or wait until the driver is in a better state. Preventing reckless driving is one of the most impactful ways we can protect not only ourselves but others on the road as well.

Remembering that day when my life flashed before my eyes still makes me feel unsettled. I never want anyone to experience what I did. Even though I only had a minuscule taste of how things can turn for the worse, I know that I don’t want to see how bad it can get. Car accidents have the power to destroy lives, so why wait for another tragedy to happen before we take action? The time to act isn’t after another tragedy, it’s now. There are many routes that we can take to get to that goal but surely we can get there whether that’s putting more emphasis on education, increasing safety features, or encouraging good behaviors, we can always start somewhere.