Don’t Die Driving

Driver’s education is vital for EVERYONE. While driving comes with the freedom to go where you want, whenever you want, it comes with responsibility. When you are driving your vehicle provides a thin metal shield to protect you while traveling. If you are not properly trained, that vehicle can become your coffin in the blink of an eye.

Young drivers are excited with their new found freedom and may feel invincible. Driver’s training is critical to instill the facts about the dangers. A situation can quickly change and everything change in an instant.

My generation is so intwined with their mobile devices and need to learn to focus on the roadways. Life can happen in an instant. A deer can jump out, a car slam on its brakes, or a bird can fly right into your windshield causing a new driver to lose concentration and make life changing errors. Putting the phones away, paying attention to the roadway and realizing that your life is more valuable than anything you would be looking at on the phone.

I speak to this because when a friend of mine was just learning to drive, she took a defensive driving course. The course was taught to teach young drivers about the dangers of driving distracted. The course also taught defensive driving and gave young drivers hands on experience with skid control by placing them in a controlled situation. My friend did not want to take the course – at all – but it ended up being one of the absolute best experiences she had and it probably saved her life.

My friend was a commuter student while in college. She was traveling from college classes back home on a country road driving 55 mph. An oncoming car swerved and came into her lane as she was just trying to get home. The reaction time she had was limited and while she did her best to avoid the vehicle, she didn’t a lot of time to respond. The other driver ended up crashing into her vehicle at full speed. This resulted in the engine of her car dislodging and was mere inches from crushing her. The impact was severe and almost pushed her over a steep drop off. The rescue team said she somehow managed to keep the car from going over the embankment which would have resulted in the engine crushing her. It was an eye-opening experience. Even while paying attention, she didn’t have time to avoid the accident but she did manage to control the vehicle from going over the embankment.

I strongly feel that driver’s education and more time needs to be provided before drivers are licensed. They need to go through all seasons of weather and be experienced on sunny, raining, foggy and snow/icy days. Most driver’s licenses are issued after a short time of experience and many drivers don’t even get a chance to be in winter conditions prior to being licensed drivers. Drivers ed courses should be provided to ALL new drivers. They could easily develop simulators for a course allowing young drivers to experience all kinds of situations in a controlled environment – much like pilots are trained to fly – why not do this for drivers – show them the dangers – but do it in a controlled environment. Defensive driving should be a mandatory topic. Life has a way of throwing things your way unexpectedly. Young drivers do not have any idea how to react. Why, because they’ve never experienced it before. And sometimes, you don’t get a second chance. Show the young driver’s situations they could encounter – in a hands-on way – give them life experiences before it’s too late.

Everyone wants young drivers to see that life is fragile. But what are we doing to actually give them the experience? Some of my recommendations for making driving safer: put your phones down, keep your eyes on the road, pay attention in drivers training, sign up for a defensive drivers course and actually get hands on experience in a controlled situation. We learn from experiences – so are we not fully equipping young drivers? Logic tells me – we need more courses and simulators to be in place. My generation is full of gamers who would love to experience training in a simulator instead of just taking testing questions or listening to the audio from the online course.

When you realize you have one life – you want to spend it more wisely and drive defensively.