Always Use Caution

When I was 16 I got my first car. It was a silver Ford Escape and I loved it. It was my grandma’s old car and the first Ford that my grandpa ever let her buy. I am the oldest child, so having a car meant that it was my responsibility to help my parents by driving my siblings around to school and their activities. One day I was driving to pick my sister up from her soccer practice. It was pouring rain and the sky was very gray so I knew I needed to be extra cautious on the road. The drive was only a few blocks away from my house and I had driven that road hundreds of times. As I was driving down the street, I could see my sister on the opposite side of the road as she had started to walk home to save some time. I decided to make a left hand turn into the driveway of the home that she was currently at. As I had learned in my drivers’ education course, I made sure to use caution and safely check for oncoming traffic before I made the turn. I signalled left, slowed down and proceeded to turn left. The next thing I remember, I was in the driveway with the airbags deployed and windshield glass on my lap. I was hit by an oncoming van that had made a right hand turn next to this house. The van had not come to a full stop and was not paying attention to the other vehicles on the road. This accident has been one of the scariest experiences I have had in my life. It is still hard to think about what happened without feeling the emotions that I experienced that day. I think about my sister who was screaming when it happened while witnessing this happen to me. She ran over to make sure I was ok. When the airbags deployed, I was terrified. This was a traumatizing incident and I hope that I will never experience something like this again in my life. For me, it really put into perspective how important it is to drive safely and defensively when I’m on the road behind the steering wheel.

My car ended up in a driveway, where the owners of the house brought my sister and me some blankets and let us stay in their garage which the police were on their way. When they arrived, the officers took our information and I gave a report of the incident. My dad had also come to the scene to make sure I was ok and help me through this. After some time, my dad noticed that the police officers were performing a sobriety test with the driver of the other vehicle. The next day, we received an official police report which stated that the other driver was intoxicated and should not have been driving that day, especially with a young granddaughter in the vehicle with him. It turned out that he went to jail for a day and I believed he deserved that.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are at driving, or how safe you are. It can all come down to the other driver. It is so important to be cautious of how others around you are driving, because you never know if they are safe, and in some cases, sober. The end result of the accident was that it was the other driver’s fault, and I hope that he learned his lesson and will choose not to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the future and put other peoples lives in danger.

Why is driver’s education important? Aside from learning all of the basic rules of the road, there are many lessons taught about why people should never drink and drive. The accident that I was in could have been much worse and we were very lucky that nobody was hurt. The driver put himself, his granddaughter and everyone else on the road at risk just by getting in his car that day. His granddaughter was probably terrified and will never forget that moment in her life. My sister had to watch me get hit and come running to see if I was even ok so she now is very nervous to drive. And it took me a while to feel comfortable driving again, especially on rainy days. I’m sure that man had been educated on what to do, but was careless.

There are a few lessons that I learned from my experience. First, I always need to be aware of other cars, because they might not be aware of me. And second, your actions affect others much more than you may think, especially when it comes to road safety.