Leading By Example

Leading By Example

By Catie He

It’s a familiar scene: Mom comes flying down the stairs, shoving toast in her mouth, grabbing the car keys, and yelling at you to hurry up because she’s running late. In the car, she’s trying to eat breakfast while swerving between cars trying to get you to school on time. Though it seems like the description of a teenage turning-of-age movie, it is what most kids experience before they even hit high school. In seventh grade, I encountered this exact scene. My dad woke up late and rushed me out of the house. As we turned down the road, my dad increased the speed, thinking that he could use the momentum of the turn to drive faster, but he ended up driving way too fast, crashing into a neighbor’s tree. Luckily, it was just a tree. Both my dad and I were okay, but I flew from the back seat to the front seat due to a lack of seatbelt, and for that I was shaken to the core. I learned two important lessons that day: always wear a seatbelt no matter where in the car, and it is always more worth it to be late than to rush on the road.

However, I did not realize how bad of a driver my dad was until I attended Driver’s Ed. My dad drives my family everywhere, so I had always thought he was the best driver. Obviously from the story above, anyone can deduce that he isn’t always the safest driver and hence not the best driver. That is the importance of Driver’s Ed. Kids are like sponges; they absorb everything and learn by example. Therefore, children seeing their parents cutting corners (literally and figuratively) while they drive, distracting themselves with food or phones behind the wheel, and having some form of road rage tells them that it is okay to do that when they have a car and can drive themselves. Driver’s Ed shows them what it means to actually drive properly and the importance of it; they unlearn what they had learned by example. More kids, after going through Driver’s Ed, are more aware and cautious of how they drive, thus reducing car accidents and deaths as a result of driving. That is what happened to me. After doing Driver’s Ed online, I began to notice how reckless my dad and friends were while driving. I would encourage them to go slower, be more patient while they drive, and correct mistakes that may have led to an accident.

Not everyone is like me though. After all, as represented by the demographic’s high insurance rates, teen drivers are the most risky on the road. Also, many deaths relating to car accidents are not even teen related as DUIs and reckless driving are prevalent in all of the adult population. So, how do we prevent these deaths? First, in Colorado and in many states, it is a law for teenagers to drive six hours with a trained professional, either with a driving school or with a police officer program. It would be beneficial to make this law applicable to everyone hoping to get their driver’s license. Many adults learn from a friend or family member, but often the experience is frustrating and/or the important and safe parts of driving are never taught. Therefore, the student driver could learn the proper way to drive safely with a professional. Another step in preventing deaths is including a defensive drivers class in Driver’s Ed. My driving school had a defensive drivers class that I took. In that class, we learned what it was like to drive drunk (with drunk goggles), drive distracted, how to parallel park, how to change a flat tire, and how to skid on ice all on a closed course in a high school parking lot. This class prepared me and the other students for anything that could possibly happen on the road. If this class was required, everyone would already have the experience of how to react safely to different situations and know why one should not drive distracted or drunk (as shown by the massive amounts of cones that one drives over with drunk goggles). Lastly, the most important thing I can do and that everyone can do is to lead by example. My dad constantly tells me to drive safely and carefully but never does. I know my dad is not the only parent and adult in the world who does this. As a society, we need to be safe drivers to not only protect each other but also to lead a new generation into an era with no car deaths.