My Driving Motivation

I have been driving since I was able to obtain my learner’s permit at 15 years old. At my high school in Ohio, we could take “Driver’s Education” as a class. I was eager to learn even though my family no longer owned a car. My only guardian, my grandmother, had been in an accident some years before when she was hit head-on by a driver adjusting his radio who veered over the dividing line. The crash totaled our car when I was in elementary school. Because of her advanced age, she did not replace it. We relied on public transportation, friends, and family to get around, and I never felt we lacked access to the places we needed or wanted to go. To practice driving, I had close family friends who would let me drive their cars when we went places.

When I was a sophomore in college, my grandmother bought me my first used car. It was a 1984 light blue Mercury Topaz. If you don’t know what one looks like, a friend of mine gave me a hilarious and perfect description when I told him about it. He said, “When you first learned to draw a car in kindergarten, you drew a Mercury Topaz!” It was one of the most styleless, basic, utilitarian American vehicles ever manufactured, but she was solid and reliable. It was a manual transmission, and I was not comfortable enough with the shifting rhythm to drive it off the lot. My friend had to drive it to campus for me while I drove his car. After a day or two, I went from jerky transitions to smooth gear shifting and quickly became a natural at driving it.

As I think back to those days, and from the vantage point I have now as a parent of two young adult sons, their experience was so different from mine. I moved to the Metro Atlanta area shortly after finishing college. My sons did not have driver’s education as an option in their school, and they both did not get a learner’s permit as soon as they could have. Neither of them seemed to care or pursue getting a driver’s licensed as my generation did. They had me and my husband to chauffeur them or they used ride-share services.

One major factor that hindered them was the fact that I had just been in a bad accident before they were due to start learning. I had actually been looking forward to teaching my older son to drive when he was 15. I had taken him on his first laps around a local church parking lot before the unfortunate incident of a young lady failing to yield and t-boning me and my youngest son on the way to school one morning. It totaled the classic Volvo I was driving. My husband was heartbroken over the car, but it fortunately protected the precious cargo. I suffered neck and shoulder damage and endured five years of litigation because the accident occurred in January 2020, and resolution was delayed by the global pandemic and court backlogs.

I missed the opportunity to teach both of my sons to drive because I developed PTSD from the accident, and I did not want my trauma passed on to them. I wanted them to be confident, assured, and even happy drivers like I had once been. I knew I could not give them that if I tried to instruct them myself. I enrolled both of my sons in a state-approved driver’s education program, which included all of the classroom safety training and six hours of professional driving instruction. My husband had to take over the duties of fulfilling the other required hours of driving experience with both of them, as I was not comfortable being a passenger with a new driver.

When it comes to teen drivers as a public issue, I believe in a holistic approach. To me, how you raise your children and the philosophy you employ shows up in the drivers you produce. Compassionate people who have empathy tend to be considerate and measured drivers. I also believe in modeling proper behavior. My husband and I, even though we have been driving for many years, recently took online defensive driving courses. Our children are aware that we did this, showing them that continued education is not only beneficial to keep insurance rates low but also to refresh safe driving practices.

It actually helped me after my accident because I had become best friends with my car horn. I used it often to alert other drivers of my discomfort with their actions. The defensive driving course reminded me that my horn can be interpreted as threatening and could escalate a tense traffic situation, causing the opposite of what I intended.

Of course, society is not perfect, and not all households have the time, capacity, and means to provide every child with the kind of wraparound support that helps develop safe driving habits. I am thankful for government-sponsored programs like the one I used, especially since trauma interrupted my plan to train my children myself. Ideally, every child would have access to such training through school, as I did. Even though we have more transportation options today, there are still limitations if someone cannot access those options due to proximity or financial barriers.

The young lady who hit me was under 25. I do not know what kind of driving instruction she received, but I later learned she was involved in another accident just four months after ours. Driving in Metro Atlanta is often the subject of news headlines and traffic studies. It consistently ranks among the most challenging cities for drivers. Because the city is filled with non-native residents like myself, many different driving styles and training histories converge, creating a wide range of perspectives on how to navigate the roads. For this reason, I have deep concern and pray for my children every time they venture out.

My oldest son lost three former baseball teammates this spring and summer in two different single-car crashes. One occurred on familiar neighborhood streets close to home, but the driver was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the car during the crash. The other happened on a wet, dark road and made local news headlines. I made the memorial t-shirts for the young man we were closest to. Both accidents sparked family discussions about safe driving practices and what might have caused the drivers to lose control. We explored different scenarios with our sons, even though only the passengers knew what actually happened. We imagined situations and talked through what they could do if they were ever in something similar.

It is easy to assume that single-car accidents are caused by distracted driving. We are not sure if one of the accidents happened because of a last-minute maneuver on a wet road or if the other involved texting, but we talked with our sons about staying alert, watching the road, avoiding distractions, and knowing their route. All we can do is make sure they have the information and understand the seriousness of the responsibility. These tragic incidents, while heartbreaking, create opportunities to reinforce safe behavior and can ultimately save lives.

All of the individuals I have mentioned are under 25. They are not teenagers, but the habits they formed as teens inform the drivers they have become. I hope that in cities with overwhelming evidence of tragedies caused by distracted and inexperienced drivers, we will see prevention programs that follow the data and are implemented more widely. Municipalities should not cut back on such programs but instead seek to increase their budgets as a matter of public safety.

Teen drivers impact everyone. There are no separate streets or lanes for them like HOV or bike lanes. These incidents are rarely isolated. Even when they are, they create ripple effects across entire communities. No one is immune, and before anyone believes they have never been affected, they should remember that the phone call could one day come to them.