How to Not Accidentally Kill People in a Car

As strange as it is, I have never actually been in a car accident. Unless you count a few minor ones when I was a baby, I have never struck, nor been struck by another car while driving. Maybe it’s because I’ve only been driving for a few years, or maybe it’s just because I’m lucky, but I don’t know for certain. What I do know is that it definitely isn’t because I paid good attention in driver’s ed. In fact, I didn’t pay any attention in driver’s ed, because I didn’t do anything for that class. Since it was entirely online, I just forgot it existed all the time. It’s a nasty habit I have with online classes, where they simply go completely ignored because I forget I have them. Because of that, I never did any driver’s ed assignments until the final stretch of the year where I finally buckled down and did a lot of stuff that I missed. You might think I’m a bad driver because of this, but I’m positive that there are significantly worse drivers than me. Let me get in to why.

I think that true driving mastery does not come from education. At least, not exclusively education. Yes, driver’s ed is important, especially when it comes to specific road laws. For example, the four-way stop. If I did not go back and re-do those driver’s ed assignments, I wouldn’t know that whoever arrives at the 4-way stop first has the right of way, and I wouldn’t even know what right of way means. But what I want to point out is that the vast majority of road laws can mostly be interpreted under common sense once you get the initial grasp of how most road laws work. I don’t know every law by the book, so I usually follow common sense that’s guided by my understanding of the road laws I do know, like how you can turn right on a red light if there’s no cars in the way. Other than my assumptions of road laws based on me guessing them based on what I already know, the other major factor for my driving skills is simply time behind the wheel. When I was learning how to drive, I didn’t do it on a computer. I did it behind the wheel with my parents guiding me. This is the real reason that I passed my driving test, because I already had a bunch of experience beforehand driving to school every day with my parents, and it’s that experience that still informs my driving actions even today. Because I can drive relatively okay without fully completed driving education, I’m hesitant to say that driver education is incredibly important. Should it be done? Absolutely, there’s no doubt that driver’s education is something all people should go through, but I think that having direct experience behind the wheel is much more valuable.

However, just being skilled at driving is not the only determining factor in what makes someone a good driver. In fact, it barely is, because it is utterly dwarfed by this next merit. Having good awareness. Anybody can learn how to drive, but you won’t ever drive well if you don’t always pay close attention to your surroundings. This is one element that I remember from online driver’s ed, where it stresses checking your surroundings for possible cues for nearby objects just out of sight. For example, if a car is stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk, someone is probably walking down that crosswalk even if they are hidden by the other car. It’d be wise to also brake, even if someone doesn’t end up being there. This is kind of basic, though, so here’s another thought on how not to accidentally kill people. Just don’t speed. I know, a lot of people generally like to go 5 miles over the speed limit, but it isn’t very wise to do so. Every additional mile per hour that you travel could cause more and more catastrophe if you end up hitting someone and increases the likelihood of them dying. It really isn’t necessary to speed, and it’s probably a good decision to go a little under the speed limit if it’s nighttime or hard to see because of the weather. Those conditions make you even less likely to see pedestrians, and you might accidentally hit someone.

As for me, I think I need to take a little bit of this advice myself, since I rarely follow these. I know, it sounds hypocritical, but the phrase do as I say, not as I do is much truer for everyone than most ever expect. I personally plan on following the advice I laid out here, but also a few other things like giving my car a wash so my windshield can be seen through much more clearly, checking my speed often after I get off an interstate, so I don’t accidentally speed, and being much more mindful of when the light at an intersection changes so I don’t accidentally run a red light. Yes, situations like that have happened. Just remember to apply this advice whenever possible, and make sure that you know how to drive a car first so you can apply it. Don’t be like my cousin Savannah, who is 18 and still cannot drive a car without crashing it into a pond. Real story.