The Weight of the Wheel

Every time we get in a car, we’re taking a chance. A chance on our own lives and the lives of everyone around us. It doesn’t feel that way, though. Driving feels normal; routine. But the truth is, we’re in control of a multi-ton machine, going fast, and trusting that people around us know what they’re doing just as much as we hope we do. Safe driving isn’t just about knowing how to operate a car. It’s about realizing that every second behind the wheel carries weight. Someone’s life depends on what you choose to do behind the wheel. Yours included. One decision can change everything. I know that, because I came close to finding out the hard way. What happened to me changed how I see everything behind the wheel. This isn’t just about what I’ve learned—it’s about what has to change, and how we can make this routine safer for everyone.

Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do regularly, if not the most dangerous. But we treat it like it’s just part of life. In the U.S. alone, over 30,000 people die in car crashes every year. That doesn’t even include the hundreds of thousands more who are injured or left permanently disabled. Most of the time, however, it’s not the weather or the road that causes these crashes. It’s us. Distracted driving, speeding, overconfidence, impairment—human error is the biggest reason lives are lost. That’s why proper driver education matters. Not just to pass a driving test, but to understand what’s really at stake when behind the wheel. Good driver education should go beyond routines and reflexes. It should leave students with the weight of what it means to sit behind the wheel of a car. Yes, it helps build habits like staying calm or thinking ahead. But more than that, it should nail in the fact that you’re responsible for the lives around you, as well as your own. That awareness is what can truly change how people drive.

We hop in and out of our cars without thinking. School. Work. A quick drive to get food. But every time we drive, there’s a risk. A risk we forget because it doesn’t feel like one. The reality: cars are heavy, they’re fast, and they’re unforgiving. We’re unconsciously trusting total strangers with our lives, and they’re trusting us back. That’s a huge deal. Behind every driving statistic is a person. A family. A story that never got to finish. A dream that never lived. We say, “30,000 deaths a year,” but that’s 30,000 people who were texting their loved ones, playing music, running late, laughing. When you realize that, it hits different. Driving isn’t just about getting from point A to B. It’s about making sure you and everyone else get there at all. That truth—that one moment can change everything—isn’t just a warning. I’ve lived it. And it’s that personal wake-up call that shifted how I think about driving to this day.

I was a senior in high school, driving to a church event. The house was out in a rural area, no streetlights, long stretches of pitch-black road. There weren’t many cars out. Just me and maybe one or two far behind. I was almost there. I figured I was fine. But there was a sharp curve coming up. One I would’ve noticed if I was paying attention. Right before the curve, I picked up my phone to send a quick text: “almost there.” Seconds later, before I could think, my car jumped. I heard a loud and terrifying snap. I had crashed through a barbed wire fence. I was in someone’s field, headlights on grass, completely shaken, but thank God I was physically unharmed. The owner came out and she was understandably upset. But what stuck with me wasn’t the damage to her property or the yelling. It was one point she said in her lecture: “Three feet to the right and you would’ve hit that pole. Six feet in the ground. Reinforced with concrete.” Three feet was all it took and this essay wouldn’t exist. Three feet and my family would’ve been having a funeral in place of my birthday that year. Since then, I try my best to not touch my phone while driving. I won’t pretend I’m perfect, I slip up constantly. But when I catch myself, I stop. I remember that night, and throw my phone in the passenger’s seat. Because I’d rather reply late than never again.

Since that night, I’ve become far more conscious of how fragile driving really is. I still have to remind myself sometimes, but the awareness is there now, and it’s deep. One of the biggest changes I’ve made is looking out for the people I care about. When I’m in the car with my parents and they reach for their phone, I’ll say. “Let me send the message for you. I’ve got it, just focus on driving.” And when we’re about to part ways, I make sure they hear this: “Please don’t use your phone when I’m not here. I want to see you when you get home.” That’s something I say from the heart because I know how quickly everything can change. That one choice—to pause, to wait, to care just a little more—could be the difference between making it home or not. But change can’t come from individual choices. It has to be built into how we teach and approach driving from the beginning.

While driver education is a powerful first step, it shouldn’t end after someone passes their test. One solution that could help reduce crashes is requiring refresher courses every few years. Especially for young drivers or those with past incidents. These could be short, practical sessions focused on habits, updates in the law, and real-life scenarios. But even more importantly, I believe we need a mandatory, in-person seminar that focuses not on rules, but on reality. No seminar? No permit or license renewal. In this space, students would hear from crash survivors, grieving families, and first responders who’ve seen the cost of human error up close. I say this because I’ve sat through those classes. I’ve watched the videos about the dangers. And I tuned them out because I thought that wouldn’t happen to me. And if I did, so did many others. That’s exactly why we need more than passive warnings. We need people to feel what’s at stake. Let them hear a mother say, “It was one second, a simple two word text, and I never saw my child again.” Let them sit in a VR simulation or a driving simulator that dares them to text while trying to stay in their lane. Let them see the aftermath of a collapsed vehicle, and hear from the survivor whose life has changed due to injury all because of one simple choice. Because when people feel how quickly everything can go wrong, they realize and start taking things seriously. This isn’t about fear. It’s about connecting to each of those humans personally and saying: We don’t want you to become another number. Help us keep you and your family from ever having to live one of those stories.

Safe driving isn’t just about following rules. It’s about people. It’s about shifting the mindset that driving is a casual routine activity, when in reality it’s one of the deadliest things we do. It’s about realizing that “just a second” of distraction can have lifelong consequences. I’ve lived that. I believe the point of education is to prevent tragedy—not just to prepare for it. The more we teach drivers to respect the weight of what they’re doing, the fewer people we’ll lose. Because the scary part is it’s far too easy to become a statistic. Every number is a life. And we owe it to each other to make sure fewer lives are lost just because we treated driving like it’s no big deal. We all share the road. We all share a responsibility to make sure we’re still here to do it tomorrow. It shouldn’t be this easy to lose a life. Safe driving is how we start making it harder.