Drive Smarter, not Harder: The Benefits of Driver Education and Vehicle Knowledge

In our modern society, we are constantly in danger, but not the danger that existed in the early days of society. Not sickness, not predators, not even famine in most parts of the world. In today’s society, we’re in danger from ourselves and from our fellow humans. Picture this: it is Sunday afternoon, an icy afternoon in late November. You’re already stressed because you forgot to buy a gift for your parents-in-law’s Thanksgiving celebration, and now the car isn’t starting. You grab a jump starter from the trunk and hook it to the battery, and the car fires up. You put the car into reverse, blow some warm air into your hands, and speed out of the driveway. You look at the thermometer in the car, 31^o F, but that doesn’t bother you. You’ve had your license for a few years now, so this is no problem. The road is dry, and the sky is clear, although it is starting to get dark. You turn off the highway after about 10 minutes, onto the rather small asphalt road that leads to your parents-in-law’s old farmhouse. It is quite long and narrow, and on top of that, it winds around narrow cliffs and trees. Since turning off the highway, the 45 mph you drive now feels incredibly slow, and you decide to speed up to 50 mph. Just as you do though, you come to that unsuspecting corner you always forget about, and just as you remember to brake, you drive over some leaves that are still wet from the rain that didn’t reach your hometown but drenched the whole countryside. You feel the ABS kicking in, but it isn’t enough. Back at your parents-in-laws’, they are wondering where you are. You should have been there 10 minutes ago, you’re not answering any calls, and they are starting to get worried.

So many things went wrong, and so many things could have been avoided with the right education. But if so much is left to cover, where should you start? Well, to begin with, let’s cover all the problems in the scenario above:

1. Being stressed: Being stressed is never good, especially not when you are about to drive somewhere in any vehicle at all. When educating new drivers, it is important that you inform them of dangers that they themselves might be responsible for. So be prepared and you won’t have to be stressed. A bonus tip is to write a list of everything you need to bring and get these things prepared and loaded in the vehicle the night before, so you don’t have to worry about them in the morning.

2. Tricky situations: All of the information above suggests that driving fast isn’t a good idea. Everything from the darkness to the weather and temperature, which isn’t even the driver’s fault, is a red flag when it comes to driving. To prevent these from being a surprise to drivers, you could educate more about hidden dangers such as wet leaves and freezing rain. In addition, you could include why these situations are so unpredictable, and provide real-life examples that prove the point further so the students really understand how dangerous something as small as leaves can be.

3. Technology: As humankind develops, we invent new technologies to aid us in our everyday lives. But many people don’t understand the true lengths of what technology can do for us. For example, there are many apps for your smartphone that tell you what the road condition for your route is like, and many other apps that for example call 911 for you, let the family keep track of you, and so on. Many driving schools fail to see the opportunities to recommend such apps to students, both to keep them safe and in the case of it being their own apps, to earn a little bit of extra money. I only see opportunities to improve here, and the benefits are endless for the drivers, driving schools, society, and humankind.

But not everything is the driver’s fault. In many places, roads lack basic maintenance and infrastructure is sometimes nonexistent, with roads all across the world collapsing every day. People may think that most accidents are the driver’s fault, but many roads lack safety precautions such as railing, maintenance and simply not being taken care of, which of course isn’t the driver’s fault. Countries have to take responsibility as well in lowering the amount of traffic-related deaths, and the best way to start is to increase road quality with infrastructure and planning well done, and later on, maintaining the good condition of roads across the countries.

So to wrap things up, what I think most people fail to realize is that there are far more opportunities than meets the eye, and many miss those opportunities. If driving schools across the world started implementing more safety-related mandatory lessons, the streets of the world would be way safer. According to the CDC, every day, around 3,500 people die in traffic-related accidents globally. That is nearly 1.4 million deaths per year! Since implementing more and more safety precautions, that number has steadily been decreasing, but much is left to be asked both by the governments and the driving schools. Therefore, it is time for us to take responsibility for our own safety on the roads. Let us demand better driver education and infrastructure from our governments, and let’s commit to being safer drivers ourselves, because what kind of world do we want to live in? One where traffic accidents are a daily occurrence or one where we can all feel safe on the roads? The choice is in our own hands, and we’re the only ones who can change it.