A Weapon We Wield

As a child, we sit in the car as our parents drive nearly every day; going to the store, dropping us off at school, sometimes even taking a trip to another state. We get older, and the day we are able to have our driver’s permit, taking another step closer to the freedom of driving alone, we are completely clueless. Our parent sits in the passenger seat of the car, pressing an invisible brake while we are still driving in the parking lot. Even after spending a quarter of our life in the car, we are still completely clueless.

It is known, that seeing is different than doing. You may see your older sibling doing their math homework, watching them every school day for an entire year, but once you get to their grade, you are completely clueless until you are able to work on the problems yourself. At first you struggle, you miss a number of questions on the practice exam but that is okay, because you still have time to practice. By the end of the week on Friday, you take the exam and get a 10/10. You were able to dedicate time to practicing and learning, even though you spent an entire year hearing your brother work through these same exact problems, you had to do it yourself to do it right.

Driver’s education is that week of practice exams and dreadful homework we have to do in order to get a 10/10 on the real exam at the end of the week. No one expects us to drive as well as someone with 20 years of experience being behind the wheel. Time dedicated to teaching youth how to drive can never be anything other than helpful. You can never be too prepared for driving, working so hard you get an 11/10 is better than getting a 9/10, which only increases the chances of taking someone’s life.

Endless practice is the best way to ensure that new drivers are properly prepared for their own license. Even at the age of 14 kids could be learning the rules of the road on paper. Sometimes as a new driver, it can be intimidating juggling so much new information at once. In schools, similar to simulation driving, textbook driving can be taught at an earlier age, prior to even letting them behind an imitation wheel.

When I was 16, three or so months into having my license, my younger brother by two years asked me to take him to a church dance about 10 minutes away. Thinking nothing of it, a simple 10-minute drive, I agreed and we both started getting ready to go. Before we left my family and I were all talking, and somehow that talking led to us taking goofy pictures together on my phone, pictures that now forever have a traumatic memory attached.

We left for the dance, both buckled and properly sitting in our seats, music playing from the radio with my younger brother controlling the song queue. We were 2 minutes away from the church, waiting to take a left turn on a green light at an intersection. It was about 8 pm at night, there were few cars and the street lights were on. There was one car in the distance, so I began to make my turn. In the middle of my turn, I noticed a pedestrian running across the intersection, to where I was heading. Without stopping fully, I slowed down to a couple of miles per hour, slowly rolling so that the pedestrian could cross. The next thing I knew my eyes were opening, there was smokey air around me and we were facing the pole in the middle of the intersection.

The car in the distance and my own had collided head-on. My car was at a near stop while the car still driving had its cruise control set to 65 on a 45mph road, so that they could scroll on their phone. Once I fully realized we had just crashed, I turned my neck to look at my brother who was just coming to as well. We both asked each other ‘are you okay?’ before we grabbed the few things we had with us, and got out of the car.

In the moment there were not many deliberate thoughts running through my head. Two things I distinctly remember thinking ‘Wow, it is weird to be in the middle of the intersection’ and ‘How did we survive that’ right after having looked at the state of my car. It was wrecked, the entire front looked like a crushed-up soda can, absolutely everything was just…destroyed, and yet somehow, we were fine. Of course, we came out with some bruises and extremely sore bodies, the pedestrian who somehow did not get hit by the two crashing cars was perfectly fine, and the man who was also involved in the crash had a broken pinky which he went to the hospital for and ended up discovering he has cancer.

This experience destroyed me for a very long time. I could have killed my brother, I could have killed two complete strangers, and I would have absolutely hated myself for it. I spent 6 months entirely terrified of being in a vehicle, I spent 2 months getting accustomed to being behind the wheel, and I spent 1 year not driving more than 5 minutes away from my house. Almost 2 years I let the accident completely control me. My anxiety got severely worse and my depression led me to attempt to take my own life, my eating habits became even more dangerous, and I was a shell of myself. PTSD from the accident controlled my life for almost 2 years until I was able to practice enough to be confident in my own driving, and protecting those in my car from the driving of others. A scared driver is just as terrifying as an overconfident driver, the best driver is the decisive driver. Mistakes happen on the road, and sadly sometimes these mistakes take lives, which is why it is important to learn from the beginning how to avoid mistakes and handle them when they do happen.

The biggest lesson I have learned through my 3 years of legally being allowed to drive, is that there is a life in every single vehicle around you. You may be in a hurry, you may be in a bad mood, or you may feel that some road rules are ‘annoying’, but there are safe ways to work around each of those situations without risking the life of another person. Value people first when you are on the road, it is a shared space where we are all simultaneously making decisions and road rules are in place to keep people’s decisions from taking a life.

One thing that I think back to when I remember my accident, is how lucky it was that I took those pictures with my family right before I left on the road. If the accident would have ended worse, my brother and I would have left on a happy note with our family. Every time before I leave home, I tell my family I love them. Even if we are arguing, even if I am in a rush, the few seconds it takes to leave happy could mean the most.