The Importance of Driver Education

Driver Education is an extremely important topic and a great skill to have. Coming from someone who lives outside of a small town in rural Iowa, I like to believe I have seen or heard it all. This includes car-deer accidents, farming accidents, accidents related to winter driving, and many more. As many people may know, there is an option now for parents to sign off on hours of their child driving for their drivers ed credit. In my opinion, this does not help for the good of student driving or driving in general. Taking my drivers ed class the summer of my 14^th birthday was one of the best decisions my parents have made for me. Having an unrelated authority figure in the car teaching me was way better than my parents. I wouldn’t have taken my parents as seriously as I did to a non-related person.

Step that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving include, absolutely no use of your mobile device while driving. I understand the rule is no texting while driving, but there are plenty more of distracting things on your phone than texting. Another way to reduce the deaths involved in driving is to slow down. People think that they are invincible, but this is only because they haven’t experienced something like this firsthand. Winter driving especially included in this. A community member was killed years ago sliding through a stop sign in icy conditions. Due to this person’s actions, they unfortunately lost their lives that day. This effects more people than themselves. That persons loved ones will forever miss them. My own aunt was also involved in a life-threatening situation. She was driving with her husband, and they collided into a deer. The body of the deer pressed into her face causing her to need cosmetic surgery. The bones and structure in her face will never look the same as before. Incidents like this could be avoided if drivers would just know to slow down. Now, I don’t see this as an extreme incident, but it was an incident. One night my friends were following me home, many things happened that shouldn’t have, and I ended up in the ditch. This was my fault as well as theirs. Although I got extremely chewed out and punished for this, I learned my lesson. I am extremely thankful that I was able to learn from this mistake than face the consequences of not being here today.

I have had friends hit deer and other cars but never personally been involved in an incident like this. I great source I have to this topic would be my dad. As of today, he just hit his thirty years of working at the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department. He was also just recently promoted to the captain’s position. Safe to say he has seen a thing or two. There have been many nights where he has come home and told me about horrific driving accidents, he has experienced along with the death notices he has given to the victim’s family members. Having this recourse in my life that I get to call my dad, as educated me so much in the importance of driving and driver education. Many accidents could be avoided if the driver that caused the accident made smarter decisions such as not texting on their phone, speeding, or driving drunk.

The way I see driving is all about being a defensive driver. You never know what the driver of the car in front, behind, or coming at you is doing. The best lesson my dad has taught me is to keep my head on a swivel. I think everyone should take this piece of advice. Ever since I started driving, when I leave the house, he tells me to drive safe. That’s the last thing that always comes out of his mouth and I plan to hold true to that every time I drive. Driver education can instill this in you as well. I learned some of my best driving skills from my driver’s ed class and I hope for everyone that they can pick up some of the same skills. As see previously, I highly recommend taking the class. An online version and driving with your parents are not as beneficial as driving with someone you don’t know. This is because you are willing to take criticism from this person as they are not your parents, and you don’t see a way to argue with them without being disrespectful. From this essay I hope that everyone can learn to be safer driver for their own benefit and the well-being of others.