The importance of safe driving

What if the next five minutes behind the wheel could change your life forever? Safe driving isn’t just a choice, it’s a lifeline. Learning the importance of safe driving is important because not only do you affect yourself on the road, you affect the lives of other people and their families. Today my essay will be covering the importance of Drivers Education, different ways we can reduce driving related deaths, and I will be talking about some moments where unsafe driving has affected me and my family personally.

Let’s talk about the importance of learning Drivers Ed. Drivers ed is designed to help us learn the basic rules and laws of the road. It also teaches us the proper way to operate a vehicle safely on the road. Learning the rules is important because not following laws and regulations can cause you to get fined, your driving privileges revoked, and you jailed. Not following speed regulations can also create unsafe driving conditions for you and others, which can cause you or someone else to get into an accident. Learning the proper way to drive a vehicle is important because without knowing how to drive, you will have a hard time doing things like parking, staying in your lane, merging lanes and more. You also learn different things to look for inside your car, like if you need an oil change, or your tire pressure is low. Not knowing these things can cause you to damage your car, injure yourself, or someone else.

Now let’s get into a few ways we can reduce driving related deaths. First, I think we should implement a seatbelt safety feature where your car doesn’t start unless you have your seatbelt on. This would force everyone to drive with a seatbelt, which promotes safety. An extra feature to that would be if they were to try to take their seatbelt off while driving, the car will slowly cut off and put on its hazards, which will force them to put their seatbelt on before driving. We also should harshen the Driving Under the Influence penalties. In Illinois, DUI penalties give intoxicated drivers a slap on the wrist when they are caught. Offenders are fined and given community service after being caught twice and only face jail time after their third time being caught. My issue with this is we don’t know how many times prior did this person drive intoxicated. They could have endangered people on the road multiple times and are easing by because they haven’t been caught. We should also implement better speeding cameras that notify the police when someone is speeding and not just give them a ticket in the mail. Now I understand that people may go over the speed limit by a couple miles per hour, but there should be a limit on which someone can go over the speed limit, like five mph over, depending on where the person is, like a schoolzone, or the expressway. Another thing we can do is promote defensive driving courses. Defensive driving courses should be a part of basic Drivers Ed to teach drivers skills and techniques to reduce traffic violations and infractions, avoid collisions, and change driver behavior and attitude. Learning these things early on can help us transfer these skills to muscle memory, which we can apply on the road.

During my sixteen, almost seventeen years of life, I’ve driven by multiple accidents, been in one accident, and have heard several stories from my family about their encounters with unsafe driving. Most of the crashes I’ve seen in person I have seen later in the day on the news, and the details would always be either someone was intoxicated behind the wheel, or someone was speeding. Seeing these things on a daily basis instilled some fear in me. They made me scared of driving too fast, or getting in the car with someone who had been drinking or smoking. The accident I was in was minor. I was a passenger in my friend’s car when she tried to rush around this car and my friend ended up sideswiping them. Luckily, nobody was hurt and there was minimal damage done to both cars. It showed me what can happen if I were to try to rush while driving. Even though we got the better part of it, it could’ve been much worse and I’m thankful for that. A story my mother told me about was when she got into a hit and run with a car. It was late, and she was on her way home from the store. She was waiting for the light to turn green at an intersection, when it turned green she started to drive off. Before she could make it all the way through, a white Dodge would speed through the intersection, hitting her. Thankfully, my mom wasn’t injured, but her car was totaled. And since the driver ran, my mother had to pay out of pocket for a new car, even though she was hit.This opened my eyes about the dangers of driving on the road, and how reckless other people can be.This could’ve been the eighth time that driver did that, but if they aren’t caught we can’t hold them accountable.

In conclusion, Drivers ed plays a huge role in reducing accidents and saving lives. By learning the rules and regulations of the road, learning different skills and techniques while driving, and slowing down, we can help create a safer community. My personal experiences have shown me how one small mistake can lead to major consequences. It is up to us to help contribute to a safer driving environment for those on the road and young people like myself who are new to the road.