The Most Important Parts of Driving

I remember the first day when I got my permit. My mother was next to me in the car, sitting in the parking lot listening to Queen. When I put that car in drive, I was scared out of my mind. Even though all we were doing was doing circles around poles, something still felt eerily dangerous. Luckily, I’ve kept that heightened sense of danger still. Just recently, my awareness prevented me from crashing in a freeway due to a driver crossing 3 lanes of traffic into my lane. While I wish everyone carried this sense of imposing danger while driving, I know that isn’t true.

Like all great and terrible stories, I knew a guy. I knew a guy who just this year crashed. The night he crashed; it was raining very heavily in my area. Considering this very dangerous driving condition, he decided he wanted to go out to not only drive, but to drive on some dirt country road and do donuts. The joke writes itself and he got wrapped onto a nearby almond tree. The crash itself was thankfully not very harmful to him, only his car which was totaled and through a miracle, somehow, he wasn’t found liable for the wreck. Everyone makes mistakes, while some are more moronic than others, and usually people learn from these mistakes and stop making them. He did not learn. While he hasn’t crashed again yet, sadly it’s only a matter of time before fate strikes again. This is one of the most important parts of driving to me. Learning. You can be the most nervous, insane, or timid driver out there but if you learn not to cross multiple lanes of traffic, to use your turn signal, or anything slightly less dangerous than what Californian drivers do you would be the best driver out of the whole state without a doubt in my mind. People need to learn the ability to understand what they just did was very dangerous and to adapt to not do it again. I do it all the time. I’ve learned through close calls to not think other drivers have an ounce of intellect, to triple check my blind spot even though my turn signal is on, and to allow the insane drivers going 10 over to just pass you. I haven’t wrecked yet following this simple philosophy. It’s one of the most important lesson and piece of advice I can give to new drivers. But sometimes, the situation just isn’t your fault.

For example, my dad. While he has crashed a lot (I think the number is around 8 now) and a few of them was just him being stupid – drifting his truck on a dirt corner when he was 20 and flying off the embankment – or inexperienced at driving, all the major wrecks he was in were never your fault. Every time, there was just nothing he could’ve done. When I was around 12, he went through his worst one yet. His light turned green and he started going when all of a sudden – boom. A car going 60 ran the light a T-boned him. He slid 60 feet and rolled over a few times before stopping. He nearly died and he had no control over it. I would like to think that this crash gave the most important lesson yet. Do not trust other drivers, not even a little bit. You have to treat that every person with a turn signal just forgot to turn it off, that at every green light someone is going to run it, at every blind corner someone won’t stop for their stop sign, and even that that sometimes people will just turn into your lane for reason and without warning. Every light now, I count a short time before letting off the gas, I put my foot on the brake on blind corners, I leave a spot open for the car on the other lane, and I only pass trucks when I have enough space to not get stuck next to it. A lot of things can go wrong while driving and while it is worrying to think about these things, you have to prepare yourself for the idiots in the world, for people that care about getting on time before caring for your life.

The best way to drive is to learn from mistakes of yourself and others, to prepare for the worst-case scenario, and to be aware. Accidents can’t happen if you don’t let yourself get caught up in one. While there will always be that freak crash, you can help mitigate it. Care for other’s safety, care for your own, and understand how at any moment, thing can get bad quick. A lot of my dad’s friends died that way. They weren’t paying attention on the highway, someone stupid crashed into them, they went racing through blind corners, they took someone else’s life. Driving is dangerous, don’t let it catch you lacking.