Know Your Driver

The more awareness and understanding one has around what could go wrong when driving, the more preventative measures they can take. Being able to drive is a privilege, and a great responsibility. When driving, there is a responsibility to be safe not only for those in your car, but for everyone around you. Without driver education, these implications are missed. Further, driver education offers a safe environment not only to learn the rules of the road and essentially how every driver communicates with one another, but also to work through potential scenarios that could lead to serious harm or death. Often, deaths as a result of driving stem from unplanned and unforeseen circumstances. While there is no way to fully prepare for circumstances that lead to an accident, being able to mentally prepare and role play potential scenarios that foster defensive driving, which is what I did in my drivers ed course, lessens the likelihood of panic taking the wheel.

As mentioned, understanding traffic laws is paramount to being a responsible driver. This creates a basic structure for everyone to follow so that there are fewer accidents from miscommunications or lack of awareness of other drivers. In recent decades especially, there has been a growing awareness about the dangers of utilizing technology while driving. While this has been met with a plethora of “hands-free” devices, the distraction that this provides certainly increases the likelihood of an accident. Devices while driving, even if “hands-free” all but require that a driver’s attention be split between the task at hand, driving, and trying to find the perfect song, or finishing that text. Completing these tasks prior to driving, and then having the boundaries set in place to limit or completely remove this distraction will greatly reduce the likelihood of an accident, and thus deaths related to driving.

I have been lucky in having avoided being in an accident up until this point in my life. That said, I remember one incident from when I was a child very clearly in which I felt extremely unsafe. My father was a complicated man, and he had a quick temper. For the most part, my memories of him driving were uneventful. I knew that my mom felt safer when she drove the family, saying that my dad drove too fast and didn’t pay enough attention, so he was not in the driver’s seat as often when I was little. On this day, my dad had picked me up from an after-school activity. He and I were having a conversation, I don’t even recall what it was about. I had started to say something and decided that I wouldn’t, as I couldn’t find the right words to correctly communicate my thoughts. My father took this a slight, saying I was keeping something from him and “playing mind games”. Everything escalated so quickly; I may not remember what we were talking about, but I remember that it was trivial enough that I was confused as to why he was getting so frustrated so rapidly. I remember the stoplight we were at, and I remember how my stomach dropped to my toes when he punched the gas, burning out on the red light as he yanked the wheel so hard I was sure we were going to roll over. We were a half hour away from home, and it was one of the longest thirty minutes of my life. He berated me the entire way, all while he drove so erratically. He took the turns so sharply and had no care for the other cars. In those moments I wished so hard to be absolutely anywhere other than in that car with him. I thought about jumping out, or just opening the door and rolling. There was never a time where he stopped enough that I could have gotten free. I was trapped and panicking. I had to bite my tongue to keep from showing my fear, as the more I reacted in any way, the angrier he got. When we finally got home, I went straight to my room. I couldn’t bring myself to speak for hours, I just curled in a ball and cried. I never went back to that after-school activity, as it would have required that my dad drive me, and I never felt safe with him after that. We never spoke about it, and I don’t recall telling my mom until I was an adult. Somehow, I knew that whatever happened in that car was very wrong, but I was afraid of what talking about it would mean. I didn’t want my dad to be angry.

I learned an extremely important lesson that day; know who you are getting in a car with. I was a child, and didn’t fully understand this, or the extent of my father’s struggle with his mental health. Nevertheless, this has stayed with me. I was known as the “mom” in high school, as I always made sure whoever was driving was responsible and someone who could be trusted to get us where we were going as safely as possible. Often, that ended up being me. There is a lot of awareness around the implications of one’s driving on other drivers, but I think there needs to be a greater importance placed on what is means to have passengers who are putting their safety and life in your hands. Having this awareness, taking this responsibility seriously, as well as limiting or completely removing distractions, like cellphones, are all integral in being a safer driver.