The Impact of Safe Driving

We have learned about safe driving for as long as I can remember but has it ever impacted anyone? I remember in elementary school we would learn about safe driving and there would be skits and videos, but nothing was ever really said when we made it to the age where we could drive.

My family loves cars, my dad loves his corvette, I love my Subaru, and my stepbrother loved his mustang. Loved. I remember driving back home one night from my dads who lives on a farm kind of far out and on a backroad. My stepbrother was working that night and didn’t get off until 10pm. By the time he had gotten off of work it was raining, no one had thought anything of it until around 11pm, my stepmother got a call from my stepbrother. He was going 69 mph in a 45-mph zone on a wet back road when he slid and lost control of his car. His car spun and his back bumper hit a tree, as the car spun around it then slammed into another tree, leaving a huge indention on the back passenger side of the car. The car was in terrible shape, but he somehow only came out with a broken rib and some cuts and bruises. When we looked at the car the damage was more than imagined. The back bumper was completely gone and both taillights were busted, the back windshield was shattered and no longer there. The front windshield was also shattered but still somehow holding itself in place. On the passenger’s side you could clearly tell where indention was from the tree, the passenger side door no longer opened, and the wheel was now crooked and almost lying on the ground. Both the back and the front passenger window was completely gone. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that every single window on the car was broken except for the driver’s side door. Almost every airbag was deployed except for the steering wheel airbag.

That night he was at the hospital until 3:00 in the morning with cuts, bruises, and broken ribs. He had to do breathing exercises every hour and had to rest until his ribs were completely healed. This impacted him and everyone else around him. I know that he loved to drive, as do I, and he couldn’t do it anymore. I know how it feels to not be able to drive for months, and he didn’t get to drive for a month which can feel like a lifetime when you don’t get to do something you love to do. If you really love to drive and want to keep loving it make sure to drive safe, not only for yourself but the people that love you.

The importance of driver education is this exactly. No one is ever impacted by driver safety skits when they’re in elementary school. You’re not impacted until something similar or worse happens to you or someone you love and care about, and that should not be the way it goes. I never had anything about safe driving in high school but now the school I graduated from is using virtual reality games to teach kids safe driving. I think that this is one really important step to take now that we have this technology. Some schools also have a drivers ed class and I think that is also an important thing to have placed in schools, especially in grades 10 and 11 and should be a requirement in order for students to graduate. My school has done a drunk driving program in the past to show how important it is not to drink and drive. They let kids drive golf carts around cones in our parking lot while they have goggles that impair their vision. This also falls under the safe driving category. Things that should be taught in these types of classes should be: drunk driving, driving while distracted (phones, eating, radio, makeup etc.), using a seatbelt, going the speed limit, even things like tires, oil, gas, and just important car maintenance that can keep a car safe to drive on the road.

More safe driving reminders need to be given because you don’t want the reminders being an accident or even a death because of something as simple as driving over the speed limit, or not wearing a seatbelt. To me driving a cool car is really cool and I love it, but driving a cool car safe is even cooler.