Become the Military Dad of Driving

My fingers trembled around the leather steering wheel. The rain clacked against the windows like pebbles. Next to me, my dad watched my every move with a stoic face. While my hands tensed and my foot pressed timidly against the brake, my father began to bark out his orders.

“Slow down, increase your following distance!”

A couple minutes later, “Focus, focus, you aren’t in the middle of the road!”

“Go! Go! Go! You missed your opening, stop!”

For over half a year, I endured militant driver training under my dad. Once in a while, the training session would end in tears as I sprinted from the car and cried into my pillows over the wallows of a near-death turn. Driving with my father was difficult, demanding, but, honestly, driving with my dad was worth it. Though I underwent my fair share of struggles and triumphs, I learned how to properly turn in intersections and parallel park. While sometimes painful, as I underwent dad-lesson after dad-lesson, I realized that strictness and a repeated enforcing of the rules was necessary.

These ideas were reinforced during driver’s education. Discussing drunk driving and deadly swerves, my instructor would bluntly tell the tale of her past students. Her calloused hands would cover her eyes and she would sigh a wheezing breath that could only be described as tragic. But my instructor’s careful stories of the many consequences of unsafe driving left us all driving a little safer that next day. Building that culture of comprehensive understanding regarding all facets of driving, the good, the technical, the bad—is the key to increasing safety and reducing driving deaths. Driver’s education brought the important first step of technical discussions and understanding. But it also brought reality crashing down on us too.

I believe the repeated enforcement from both my dad and driver’s education created my awareness of the dangers and thus safe driving practices in my own life.

Though it sounds odd, fear is useful. Awareness is powerful.

Furthermore, taking a page out of my dad’s militant style, driving alone should only start when driving is second-nature: don’t practice until you’re good, practice until you can’t make any mistakes. In-cars, driving education, and parents should all be enforcing this culture. Even once I got my license, I drove with my parents for another year before I was let loose on my own.

Now, when I drive or carpool with my friends, I use the same mindset my father gave to me—though with less venom. An unbuckled seat belt can’t be tolerated, and if my friend’s following distance is too small, I immediately give them a reminder to keep a distance. Studies show that enforcing strict traffic laws, such as seat belt laws, speed limits, and impaired driving laws, can significantly reduce fatalities. For example, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), seat belts reduce the risk of death by up to 50% in a crash. But it’s not just up to law enforcement, it’s up to us to create this culture too.

One day, that gentle reminder that rang in my head became a blaring alarm. Gentle wind was drifting through my fingertips as I hung my hand from the car window. I turned the volume up to blast the new Olivia Rodrigo album. My sister was driving the car, the sunset blushes onto our cheeks.

At the busy intersection that sun blinded her vision. She was waiting to make a left turn, but she didn’t see the car when she turned. With a tight swerve and a gasp of shock, we drove off the path. Only by the grace of my sister’s quick adjustments did she manage to veer the car back on the road. We left the scene with only a dent in the grass and our pale complexions.

So often, it’s simply circumstances that create tragedies or miracles. I experienced a miracle that day. It broke the normal, passive, and mindless driving that slowly settled into both me and my sister as driving became simply a given to us.

Normalcy makes us complacent. Accidents become normal. At its core, repetition within driver’s education, passionate and caring instructors, and an active mindfulness when driving all revolves around awareness. We must commit to focusing on driving and leaving distractions like texting or talking on the phone behind. In fact, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that distracted driving claimed 3,142 lives in the United States in 2019 alone.

A strong and mindful education is what gifts us that awareness from the start to result in careful and attentive learning. But it is up to us to make sure safety is what becomes the norm and never take safe driving for a given.

We must teach each other to never forget that our lives are most important.

These days I’ll still occasionally take a drive with my dad. My hand will rest on the wheel with confidence and my eye will focus steadfastly on the road. I carefully rotate the steering wheel at a left turn, and when the roundabout is busy I’ll keep patience in mind. Sometimes he will still comment with an, “easy now,” or, “watch carefully”.

But once in a while he’ll add in a, “hm nice turn,” or a, “good timing on the roundabout”. Though the praises are nice, what I’m truly proud of is my ability to drive with focus, awareness, and care. Looking back, I suppose my tears were worth it. Because in reality, militant levels of attention in the car can save lives. So let’s strengthen law enforcement, drivers education, and our own driving practices, not just to protect ourselves, but to protect those around us too.