“pole pole POLE” and the Good Ol’ Days

My driver’s education was an absolute bore. I hated every single second of it. Currently, my brother is going through the same process, being dragged through it with his license as the carrot and my mother as the stick. Despite hating the droning voice telling you what to not do and things you feel like you will never use, my parents made sure we were absorbing the information given, and it’s not until recently that I understood the importance of why.

We can see the shocking statistics in the data table given. The numbers are compared to wars in many countries, where the bombs were dropped out of the air instead of rolling on wheels. But it still feels like just that, a statistic. It feels far away and unreal, to myself and most teenagers. It’s not personal. In an instance close to home, we had numerous incidents in our high school parking lot as long as I’ve been here, most not even recorded. I even had friends who were in these accidents, with me in the car, through carelessness in the vehicle. And granted, he thought we were joking when we said “pole pole POLE”, as that’s what drivers safety has become, a joke. Even my father says that to me, jokingly yelling “SQUIRREL” since my first time behind the wheel. I would have thought we were joking too.

I know full well that my friend who scraped his entire side of his car on that pole, did not pay attention to the driver’s ed. Owen never paid attention to anything. There are countless teenagers like him, who “took” drivers ed, but didn’t really take anything in. Does this mean requiring it is pointless? Of course not, as according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s new study, it reduces the amount of teen drivers in moving traffic violations by almost half of the original percentage (18.3%). Nonetheless, improvements must be made.

The best way to make drivers ed effective, is to de-digitize it. While online drivers education has the best intention, the most it can do to make sure anyone is paying attention is to make them move their cursor, which takes no brain power. While there are in person drivers ed offered, it is not the option chosen by most as most of the slots are full, and it’s 9 hours in a building with strangers on a weekend. I have known only 1 person who has taken it, and they didn’t retain much either. The modern person for generations has done the majority of its formal learning in one place– a school building. If we have decided as a society that that is the best place to learn how to do math, read, etc, why is driving any different?

I wish every day that we had home economics in my school. I would love to learn how to build things, sew a button, and life skills. In this they also learned how to drive, in my parents day at least. They had a school car with breaks below the passenger seat, where teachers could do individual lessons, but they learned as they learned every other skill in a day- in a classroom with a teacher who knew kids. When you have real life teachers, personalized experiences, we can tailor the learned experience to the kids how they need it. If they do better, with lectures, with hands on, it is up to the teachers based on what they know the kids they see every day need. In addition, they would be more inclined to pay attention. The lessons would be built into their school day, so as to not try to teach them more when they are already burnt out from a whole day of sitting at a desk..

I am not usually one to say “bring back the good old days”, as in the good old days the majority of the population could not vote, nor did kitchen aid stand mixers exist. But, technology is proven every day to rot the human brain, overstimulating it in ways it is not evolved to handle, from the light to the posture. It has increased anxiety and depression rates at an exponential rate, and I suspect statistics on this new drivers ed form are not far behind. We will be back to the place where we were before it was required at all, because with nothing absorbed and the abundance of distractions available, it will be like people never took it at all.

It would be delusional to think that this is a solution that could be implemented soon. It takes funding, time in a school day, parental consent, and teachers who know enough about cars to teach it properly. So, we must look at short term solutions in the meantime. There are small goals to be taken, such as the mode on your phone that disables notifications when you are driving to discourage distractions. Parents can take time of day to really explain to their kids the dangers of said distractions, of having too many screaming friends in the car, and that snow is much scarier than one thinks. As someone who just got their license, and winter coming up, I have been learning all I can about the snow. I have been trying to tell my friends about how ice is worse on bridges (fact) and reminders to drive safe. In my newfound driving adventure, I am commiting to putting my cellphone in the backseat while I am driving, a self implemented strategy to focus. With this effort and a more involved, in person drivers education program, we can hope to make our streets and our children safer.