Driving into the reality of life and the choices we make from it

So many students pass driver’s ed, but so many of those students will end up in car accidents in less than twelve months. My driver’s ed experience was taken over the summer, and it was very laid back, and the unit tests were easy. The problem is that, at a young age, many students have not made a mistake that has a negative consequence. This is good in some ways, but once teens get their licenses to drive and can drive by themselves, it can be nerve-racking as a parent to see their kid drive all by themselves out in the world where bad things are prone to happen.

What needs to be changed is that every new driver needs to be tracked. What I mean is that teens can know what different signs mean and can be applied, but when teens are new to driving, they make good habits and poor habits. A good habit is obeying the speed limit and obeying traffic lights. The worst habit is being on the phone while driving. Driving consists of only one attention and not dual attention of driving and being on the phone. Multitasking is good in getting tasks done, but the quality of the end product is done very poorly. Many apps today help track a driver’s speed, turning, acceleration, braking, and phone distractions. This gives a score each time people drive, while the score will fluctuate each time someone makes. What helps the most is that when something during the trip happens, like breaking the speed limit, the app will tell where it occurs and show it on a map. What’s nice is that parents have access to this and their teen while on the road. Having this app provides an accountability for drivers that can prevent the number of deaths.

During my junior year of high school, I got involved in an incident that occurred on my way home from work. What started it was that the road was under construction on a two-lane road. The right lane was closed almost all week and was being repaved. At the intersection, I would usually take a right on a one-lane road. But since the right lane was closed, I would turn right on the left lane. On Friday evening, I did what I always did when I got home that week and drove the road that had been directed all week. As I was about to make my turn since the light was green for a while, I was about to turn, I heard a loud screeching noise like I had never before in my entire life. I saw this black Lincoln Continental come by and nearly T-boned me, but was aware of my recklessness and tried to swerve out of the way to avoid contact. We were both okay, but I was terrified of what had happened. When we both got out of our cars, I was ready to get screamed and yelled at for scraping the side of this man’s Lincoln Continental. When he got out, my immediate reaction was to apologize first and wait for the “What are you thinking kid!” or the “Look what you did with my car!” I was surprised that I wasn’t getting yelled at, and part of me wanted to be yelled at. I asked the man if I could call my dad because I was uncomfortable being in this situation, and the man allowed it. When I called my dad, I was so scared of what I was about to tell him, that I had just gotten into a car wreck. He seemed concerned about it and drove into the middle school parking lot where I was at. The man whose car I hit was an old principal. He was at the middle school where we were exchanging numbers and insurance. Luckily, I listened to my mother when a week before the accident she showed me what the registration and proof of car insurance looked like. Minutes later, my dad showed up and was there for support. When the cops showed up I explained what happened, and he said to me that I got lucky and it could have been a whole lot worse.

The most important thing I learned is not to have your guard down while driving because not focusing on driving will put lives at risk, and you are not behind the wheel. Excuses will never be by your side when explaining to the cops what happened. To help better drive that point forward, I made sure I had a better awareness behind and in front of me. That includes checking my mirrors more often, and paying more attention to the road, and that it can fluctuate when lanes are being opened and closed. These types of incidents happen from new drivers developing bad habits that immediately break when an accident occurs.