Passenger princess

I am currently a senior in high school with a goal of pursuing a career in aviation. What some people find funny about that is that I am 18 but have not gotten my driver’s license yet. Many of my friends haven’t either. It’s probably a surprising thing to hear, or at least a lot of my family or other adults think it’s pretty weird. A big part of the reason, that my friends may not admit to, is that it’s because of fear. I aced my written permit test with no problem but when I started practicing driving for the first time, I found myself pretty nervous on the road. I started slowly in parking lots and eventually hit the road. Immediately I was met with other drivers not following any kind of driving laws or safety. People say the town I live in people just drive crazy and it’s true. Going 25mph isn’t fast enough for people and they just go around you or ride your bumper. I think I could drive better if the people around me were driving normally. After my first week of practicing after getting my permit, I told my mom I was just going to be a “passenger princess”. It didn’t seem worth the effort to end up getting in a wreck or worse. Even though I could afford a car, my car insurance would be so high because apparently it is based on zip code and age. So even if you are a good driver but other drivers in your area are terrible, you get punished for it. I didn’t bother practicing again for probably a year. My mom said when she was in high school, they had driver’s education class in school with simulators. I don’t know if it’s just my school that doesn’t have this class, but I think all high schools should have some kind of driver’s education offered. If everyone was required to have drivers education before being able to get a license, young people especially would be more experienced and confident in their driving ability and lead to much fewer deaths involving youth drivers.

I’ve never been in a car accident thankfully, but I’ve definitely seen a few. It’s hard to say why so many accidents happen, whether it’s truly a brief accidental lack of attention, if people don’t understand the traffic laws or if it’s that people are just choosing to drive badly and don’t think anything will happen to them. I think the most common accident I’ve seen is when someone is making a left turn and collides with someone else going straight. I know the person turning has to yield unless there’s a green arrow, but it seems like some drivers either don’t know this or they think they’re faster, who knows. I believe if a person is ticketed for causing an accident or just driving erratically, they should be made to attend some kind of victim panel to meet people one on one affected by car accidents. They do this if a person drives drunk but why not for other reasons? It’s easy for some people to be passive about how their poor driving affects other people, but it’s harder to ignore a person’s experience when they are standing in front of you. It may be a good thing to incorporate something like that in a standard driving class, before even getting a license. I do think giving tickets and having monetary punishments is useful for trying to reduce bad driving, but some people don’t care about that type of punishment.

As for me, I need to get a new permit since it expired and I’m still not ready to take the driver’s test. I can only give the advice that I know so far as to how to be a safe driver. Always wear a seat belt, it’s just stupid not to. It’s part of driving, so just do it. This goes for adults too, who often will tell a kid to buckle up, but for some reason they don’t wear theirs. It’s like putting on your oxygen first, how can you help anyone in case of an accident if you’ve flown out of the car? Be mindful of speed limits. If you’re running late, accept it. It doesn’t mean you need to drive faster, it means you should have left earlier. Don’t make it the world’s problem that you didn’t wake up on time. Arrive alive as they say. Follow traffic laws and signal lights. PAY ATTENTION! Whether it’s your normal route, construction or a road trip, pay attention to your surroundings. That means stay off your phone. This is a very bad habit for drivers of all ages. Let your passenger princess handle the radio or returning a text for you.