Driving Safely Matters

Driving is essential to daily living. For example, if you have to go to school, you usually drive. Same with going to work or sports practices. In my opinion, driving can be fun, but it is also perilous. To make driving less dangerous, rules have been implemented, but these rules aren’t always followed. Driver education is an important subject that needs to be taken seriously. From personal experience, the workers at the DMV aren’t always paying attention when supervising a road test. This is terrifying to think about.

Driver education courses, essentially, teach the student(s) how the car works, what to do, and what not to do in the car. I believe that these courses need to be more advanced and discuss scenarios that could occur while the student is driving. I know that it can be difficult to teach teenagers, but too many teens are dying in car accidents.

To reduce the number of driving-related deaths, we need to induce a stricter policy on breaking driving laws. We also need to mandate taking driver education courses before allowing students to drive. While I have not personally been in a car accident, my cousin died because of a drunk driver. Driving is stressful enough without having to wonder whether the person in the lane next to you knows how to drive properly. With driver education, students would learn not to break the laws. Driver education would also help students realize that it is better to go the speed limit and arrive a little later than expected than to not arrive at all.

In a driver education course, students learn how to safely handle the vehicle, which includes accelerating, braking, and steering. This is vital to driving. Being homeschooled, I did not have a driver education course to take. To obtain my learner’s permit, I studied a book and took a test at the DMV. You may think this sounds reasonable, but I know people who did not study and still passed. I was lucky enough to have my parents teach me how to drive, but they should not have to take time out of their busy schedules to teach their children. Some parents simply don’t have the time to teach their children how to drive or simply don’t want to. I believe that states need to make driver education courses accessible to all, no matter what school the student attends. In addition, driver education courses are expensive if you do not live somewhere where they are mandated. From experience, I know that some driver education courses are $500 or more. This doesn’t include the gas that you are using. This is outrageous and needs to be changed. If students don’t have the funds to take a driver education course, how are they going to learn to handle a car correctly? The answer: they aren’t.

I dislike driving on the interstate because people drive way beyond the speed limit. I feel like a snail in the middle of a herd of running deer. Driver education is even more important on the interstate because the speed limit is already so much higher than on regular roads. Students need to develop the muscles in their legs to be able to stop quickly and safely. From personal experience, the faster you go, the harder it is to stop. Driver education courses teach students to pay close attention to their surroundings and not to get distracted by the flashing lights or interesting cars on the interstate. Driving isn’t something to be taken lightly, but you especially need to pay attention on the interstate. A few years ago, I was driving on an interstate in Florida with my family. We went up a hill when suddenly, traffic was at a dead stop on top of the hill. My dad, who was driving, realized that if he didn’t change lanes, we were going to nail the car in front of us and be nailed by the people behind us. My dad learned from experience how to avoid wrecking, but a brand-new driver wouldn’t have this knowledge unless they went to a driver education class.

In my opinion, driver education also teaches students to obey the law. Reading a book about what to do in certain scenarios doesn’t truly put you into the correct mindset. I believe that you have to truly be on the road to realize the danger of unsafe driving. Students who take the driver education course are, in my opinion, more likely to follow the rules than someone who learned from a parent or friend. Teenagers observe people around them and match what others do. If a parent speeds and then tries to teach the student not to speed, the student will wonder why it is okay for the parent, but not for them. This leads to bad habits and dangerous driving. Driving is a learned skill and it is important that students learn with a qualified instructor before being allowed to drive on their own.

I don’t believe that there is a way to safely talk to someone on the phone and still drive. To me, driving and talking on the phone, even hands-free, is still extremely dangerous. When you talk on the phone and drive, your brain has to give half of its attention to what the person you are talking to is saying and the other half to driving. You need to focus completely on driving. Driver education shows how important focusing is and sometimes, like when students pass by a wreck, it shows the consequences of unsafe driving.

There are several things that I can do in my own life to practice driving more safely. Mainly, I need to pay more attention. I am easily distracted by what my passengers are doing around me or what song is on the radio. This is especially true when I have my younger brother as a passenger. I don’t want to teach him bad habits that could lead to him getting injured or even dying. To help others drive better, I can politely tell them when they are speeding or driving too close to someone. Texting and driving is a huge issue. When the driver of the car I am in starts to text and drive, I need to be more vocal about how dangerous this is. Supporting local events that discuss the topic of drunk driving and other related issues is also something that would benefit my society.

In conclusion, driving is an important part of our day-to-day lives. Driver education is extremely important and it needs to be mandated across the country and even the world. I believe that driver education could help reduce the number of car-related deaths by teaching teenagers to pay attention to what they are doing. I also believe that it could teach teens about the consequences of driving unsafely.