2023 Drivers Ed Essay

I think that it is of the utmost importance for every new driver to take some type of driver education course prior to applying for a driver’s license. Whether that be a teenager or an older person. I don’t think that you can have too much education regarding driving, and how dangerous it can be if not taken seriously. Unfortunately, people die every single day in automobile related accidents, and I think that most of them could be avoided if we were taking driving to be more serious. I would venture to say that the leading cause of these accidents are the distractions that drivers have.

I currently have a sixteen-year-old who will be taking her driver’s test in the next few months, and I personally don’t think that the state requirement of six months with a permit and sixty hours of driving is long enough. I would love to say that parents should be the ones to decide when the right time would be for their child to get a license, but that just isn’t realistic in today’s society. In the state I live in currently, driver’s ed is not a requirement that the school district has, which I do not personally agree with. However, we moved here from a state that did require it for new drivers, so I find the inconsistency to be a little concerning. Since the accident and death rates are so high in the United States, I would think that the requirement in high school would be a national thing, and not differ state by state. I am not opposed to the hard lessons in life that people need to experience or see. One of those would be to have required classes for upcoming drivers, more specifically teenagers. Although morbid, seeing the actual effects and outcomes of distracted driving may “burn” an image in students brains that could in the end make a difference when it comes to them getting behind the wheel.

I have been in two different car accidents in my life. One when I was young passenger and one when I was in my early twenties as the driver. When I was young, I was riding in a truck with a family member at night time and they had run a stop sign that was not clearly visible to the driver, and it caused a three-car accident. When I was in the accident when I was older and the driver, I just wasn’t being as cautious as I should have been and turned left into a parking lot after two lanes had stopped for me. There was a third lane that I was not aware of and a car ended up t-boing me on the right side, where my passenger was sitting and still suffers from rib problems some almost twenty years later. In both cases they were “accidents”, but could have been avoided. I have lost a friend from high school from wreck less driving, shortly after she has graduated high school. It was so very sad because she had her whole life ahead of her. My husband has lost a few friends as well. Speeding and driving under the influence were the causes. In all the cases we have experiences, someone has been died.

Even though I have been driving for over twenty years at this point, I take it very seriously. Especially now that my children are watching more closely, getting themselves ready to be drivers. I know how important it is to limit distractions, especially cell phones. I think that being distracted by cell phones contributes a high percentage of the car accidents that happen today. Even though talking on your cell phone is illegal I think almost everywhere, that still doesn’t stop some people. I still get distracted by things when I am driving, both inside the car and outside the car. Most of the time when I am driving, it is with some or all of my children in the car, and that can be distraction enough! Something is usually going on with them, and that can be a distraction. I define a distraction as anything that takes your focus or attention away from the task at hand. So when I am looking in my rearview mirror at one of my kids telling them to keep their hands to themselves, that is taking my focus and attention away from driving, even if it is only for a few seconds. But we know in driving, a lot can happen in only a few seconds, and that is scary! With my own daughter now learning to drive, my husband and I emphasize the importance of limiting those distractions, phones, music, and even rolling the windows up so the noise of the outside doesn’t effect our driving.

Unfortunately I think that there will always be accidents, but I think with the proper education and training (actual behind the wheel) I think that those numbers could be drastically reduced.