Education and Emotion on the Road

I got my driver’s license when I turned the age of 17, after driving for 40 hours with my dad and skipping the official driving education course, but I was happy nonetheless when that piece of plastic came in the mail. I will be the first to admit that the driving exam felt pretty easy, but in my brain that didn’t matter: “I’m a good driver; I know what I need to do in case of an emergency.”

96 percent of drivers have witnessed a road rage incident within the past 6 months.

So I went on. I got ready for my senior year of high school with the road unlocking like an achievement in a video game. Sure, I was a little reckless with my speed, but can you blame me? I had places to be, and cutting a couple people off won’t hurt anyone.

There has been a 500 percent increase in reported road rage incidents.

Senior year felt like every other year; I had ended a long friendship on bad terms, but in hindsight I’ll laugh about it, or so I told myself. Time passed, new year celebrations had concluded, and I was ready to enter the last half of my senior year. I was approaching the last stretch of road before I had to turn to my school. The posted speed limit was 45 miles an hour, and I was cruising at a solid 50. “No harm, no foul,” I thought. That’s when, out of the corner of my side-view mirror, I watched as a giant truck, double the size of my dad’s old car, rushed past me and cut directly in front of me with literal inches to spare from a total collision. I did my best to see who this driver was because I was filled with so much anger; that’s when I noticed that it had been the friend whose friendship ended on bad terms. There was a grin on their face that told me this was on purpose, which I later had confirmed. I didn’t care what the intention was; I was upset, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

50% of drivers respond to the careless acts of other drivers with aggressive behavior themselves.

Suddenly, every bit of learning I had done in my classes was gone; I remembered what I’ve seen others do when they get disrespected on the road. Moving forward throughout the day, the school day has concluded, and it is time for me to go home when I see the same truck going above the speed limit in the lane adjacent to mine. I floor it, ignoring every traffic sign and every other vehicle on the road. I felt only rage. I cut them off ridiculously close, hitting a top speed of 80 miles per hour in a 40-mile-per-hour zone.

A total of 12,610 injuries and 218 murders have been attributed to road rage over a seven-year period in the United States.

Road rage is a scary thing. I had just witnessed and experienced my first real taste of road rage, and I was completely blessed that there was no injury with my reckless action. Driver education, especially that given to teens, discusses road rage incidents, and many teens are better drivers than I was then. Having the classes in place to help students with that response to anger is a useful one and is one that I still wish that I had taken the time to listen to.

66% of traffic fatalities are caused by aggressive driving.

I believe that road rage as a concept isn’t talked about enough. I fell victim to my emotions on the road in response to someone else; here’s the problem. The road does not care who started it. Millions of 2,000-pound vehicles are being driven at speeds people 200 years ago couldn’t dream of. Objectively the use of emotions should not be as strong as it is presented. Being responsible on the road requires more attention to be put not only on the road but also on how you yourself are doing. Are you tired? Are you feeling angry? That has to be taken into account when on the road. Driving education, especially with teenagers who are getting their first experience with driving, provides that experience for students to learn the varieties of driving, including an emotional level.

Driving education students are 10 percent more likely to avoid car accidents and tickets then students who didn’t take the course.

I deeply regret my reaction to someone’s act of road rage; road rage incidents take too many lives each year. Multiple universities and public foundations have shown that in order to be a responsible driver as a teenager, official driver education is the way to go. It is a direct and effective way to teach teenagers the proper way to react to uncommon and emergency situations. Ultimately, it is the education that I misused and forgot at times that makes me the cautious and responsible driver I am now.