Driver Awareness

Driver’s education strives to reduce the number of deaths as the outcome of driving by teaching people how to stay focused on the road and aware of their surroundings. In driver’s education, I learned how there is no such thing as multi-tasking. You can do two tasks at once, but you are giving much more attention to one thing than the other. If you are texting while driving, you cannot give your undivided attention to the road and the other drivers surrounding you. It is impossible. When the sky is clear, all your windows are down, and you are listening to music; you do not think about the consequences of being in awe of the scenery or picking up your phone to change the song. The goal of driver’s education is to make sure the driver knows the risks and responsibilities that come with driving and to make them aware of how easily they can get distracted.

To ensure the safety of you and other drivers, you should stay aware of your surroundings at all times. A split second could alter your life, or the life of others. Most teens when they first get their license are so excited to drive, they do not consider the responsibilities that comes with driving. They do not think about the fact that they are in control of large moving objects; if something were to happen and they collided with another one, there could possibly be lives lost. They think about it as just a form of transportation, or something they can detail and soup up. The way you drive is not the only thing you should be paying attention to. Car accidents are not always on you, so you have to make sure to stay conscious of the vehicles around you and their driving patterns. Are they following too closely? Are they constantly breaking? Are they hugging or crossing the line? Being vigilant of others on the road keeps you safe. Ways to keep yourself and others safe is by putting the phone down, buckling up, checking your mirrors regularly, staying in your lane, and keeping your eyes on the road.

I have never personally been in a car accident but my eighth-grade year, on Christmas Eve, my mom was in a terrible accident. My parents had dropped me and my siblings off at my grandparents’ house while they grabbed a few last-minute items for Christmas. Once they got done, my mom took the vehicle with presents in it and my dad took the other vehicle to go pick me and my siblings up. As we were driving down the dirt road leaving my grandparents’ house, my dad gets a call from my mom; though it was not my mom. He picks it up and it is a man on the other end stating that my mom was in a car accident. She was trying to hurry to get home and had passed him, when she passed him and got in her lane, she lost control and overcorrected. She flipped in the air four times and landed in a field. All her airbags were deployed, and she had kicked the shattered windshield out so she could crawl out of the 4runner that had landed on its side. He got there and called 9-1-1 immediately, and then my mom asked the man to call my dad. When we got there, the ambulance had not made it there just yet, there was debris everywhere. She was okay, just bruised up and she had nicks all over her hands from where the glass had hit her. It was a huge scare. Me, as the oldest, and my brother, as the second oldest, got out to look for things that had been flung out of her truck and into the field. We found a couple of her belongings, while my dad got the rest of the things out of the vehicle such as Christmas presents and our ingredients for breakfast the next morning. With the condition her vehicle was in; we had thought she had gotten severely injured. We are so thankful she was safe. The vehicle was completely totaled, there was no fixing it. That was the oddest Christmas I have ever experienced.

Ways to improve the quality of your driving and the safety of others is by staying completely aware of your surroundings, giving the road your full and undivided attention, by not speeding or driving recklessly, following at a safe distance, wearing your seatbelt, and obeying traffic laws. Helping others stay safe on the road is more difficult to do. Some people, you can tell a hundred times to do something, and they will not listen. It never hurts to still tell them that they should drive safer, but the best thing you can do is to be an example. If you are constantly telling someone to buckle up because it will keep them safe in case of an accident, but you never do it yourself; why would they believe you if you do not seem to care enough to do it. Leading by example and showing them that you honestly think it will help, might have some persuasion on them.