The 42nd Mile

Imagine you’re a parent, and your child’s birthday is coming up. For their birthday, you’ve decided to get them a gift that will make their day-to-day life significantly easier and that they will use close to every day for the rest of their lives. However, there’s a catch: using this item can be life-threatening. In fact, once every 12 minutes someone using this item will die. With this knowledge, would you hand this gift over to your kid, telling them nothing other than just “Have fun!” – or would you do everything in your power to make sure they’re educated on how to use it safely and responsibly? When put like this, the answer should be obvious. Extensive driving education should be provided to everyone on the road. Learning how to be a safe driver can save not just your life, but the lives of the drivers around you; it shouldn’t be a privilege or just for people with some extra time and money on their hands, but instead an essential part of being a licensed driver.

I was lucky enough to have parents who enrolled me in driving school. I remember them telling me it could save my life one day, and thinking that must be an exaggeration. I was of course aware of the possibility of getting into a car crash, but it was easy to think that something like that would never happen to me. I didn’t have the most open attitude towards spending 8 hours a day crammed in a tiny classroom with about 10 other kids, but despite my doubts, I went. On my first day it was hard to not pay attention to the fact that all of the other kids there were pretty clearly younger than me. I was only 17, but I remember feeling behind. Fortunately for me and other drivers on the road, however unfortunately for my character, I had an ego far too big to let kids younger than me become better drivers than me. Admittedly, it’s not the most inspiring motivation and most would (understandably) call it questionable; but I had a reason to want to become a better driver and everything I learned held a little bit more importance to me.

I took notes, which I hadn’t been known to do whilst learning anything, and paid attention to everything the teacher said. Even though in the beginning my intentions – simply to be better than other people – were quite embarrassing, it didn’t take long for my interest to become much more genuine. My classmates and I were shown a plethora of videos about the dangers of driving while intoxicated, using your phone, or without a seatbelt. My eyes were fixed to the screen. Seeing videos of the families of those who died due to others making those mistakes scared me, and forced me to visualize myself in a situation like that. Suddenly it felt real. I realized being involved in a serious car crash was something that could happen on any ordinary day, and certainty not a far-off possibility I didn’t need to worry about. Seeing the hurt that could be caused by being irresponsible on the road made me promise myself I would always do everything in my power to keep myself and others safe. Knowing how to be a safer driver made me feel like a good person. I learned that my parents were right – it could save my life one day.

Over the following weeks, I went through the typical motions of becoming a licensed driver. My first few months of being behind the wheel weren’t particularly memorable. I was responsible and followed the advice of my parents, but it didn’t take long for me to start to feel like I had conquered the road. The fears I started out with were hardly a problem anymore; I was confident. I naïvely thought that the dangers of being on the road weren’t anything I should worry about too often. I wasn’t reckless by any means but I had lost the attention to detail I once had. Getting in a car crash was slowly but surely starting to go back to feeling like a far-off possibility. Clearly that same ego that had been my first push into learning about being a safer driver was now getting in my way of doing just that. I needed something to snap me back into reality – and it didn’t take long for that something to happen.

On one bad, but not entirely out-of-the-ordinary evening, I got into an argument with my dad. It wasn’t catastrophic, but it was enough to make me want to take advantage of the fact that my parents live in different houses. I texted my mom and asked her if I could come over. She told me yes, but to be careful because it was late on a Friday night and people were probably driving drunk. I took it seriously and knew that she was right, but still felt detached from the possibility that I could get in a car crash. So fearlessly, I left my dad’s house. There are 55 miles between my parents’ houses, and the drive along those miles is a route very familiar to me. On this drive in particular, the first 41 weren’t particularly memorable. But on the 42nd mile I drove that Friday night, my perspective was changed. I would no longer be someone who was aware that car crashes happened, but still felt “bigger” than the possibility of it. I would be someone who lived through one. And calling it a snap back into reality would be an understatement.

Still crying over my argument with my dad, I approached one of many intersections I had driven through in the past hour. I had a green light. I was going the posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour, but so was another car, perpendicular to me, who had a red light. I saw the car before the impact – How fast it was going, and how there wasn’t enough time to slow down – but by that point it was too late to avoid a crash. For a moment I thought acceptance was the only option; but the next moment, I remembered what I learned in driving school about defensive driving. I swerved as much as I could away from him, since trying to stop my car would have only made it worse. In the blink of an eye, I lived through what so many people had warned me of. I remember my head jolting around, the sound of the windows shattering, and the force of the impact spinning my car more than 180 degrees. When everything stopped, I sat in silence for a few minutes trying to process what happened. The other driver and I had spun enough to be facing each other during those moments, and we made uncomfortable eye contact a few times.

Still a little dissociated, I got out of my car to talk to him. He was too drunk to speak. We couldn’t communicate at all. I looked at my car and saw where the impact was. The backseat driver’s side door of my car had been completely crushed. If I didn’t make that last minute decision to swerve to the right, which moved the impact from the driver’s seat to the backseat, I can’t say for sure what would have happened – But I can say for sure I wouldn’t have been able to walk out of the car. I called my mom and the police. I couldn’t help but burst into tears. What I had done in that split second before the impact had saved my life. My parents told me that driving school could save my life. What they didn’t know is that it would.

The next day I found out Emily, my 2007 Honda Accord, was totaled. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a disappointment, but more than anything I was happy to be alive. That ego that had been with me for so long, on the other hand, was not so alive. I was terrified of driving again. Because I wasn’t at fault in the crash, I realized some dangers on the road are out of my control. Keeping the roads safe isn’t something one person can do alone, it’s a combined effort of every single driver on the road. As I began to drive again, I was no longer concerned about being better than anyone else, I was concerned with being better for the sake of everyone else.

Since what happened on that 42nd mile of my drive, I’ve completely changed my attitude towards driving. If I’m feeling particularly stressed about something in my life, I’ve started to do a meditation before I drive. This gives me a clearer mind and helps to ground me, making it easier to pay attention to everything that’s happening on the road, not everything that’s happening inside my head. I keep the volume I play music at relatively low, and if I’m driving with a passenger I’m not afraid to ask them to pause a conversation and help me with my driving if I need it. The life of me, my passenger, and everyone else on the road is far more important than any conversation we’re having. I check my blind spots and mirrors and pay extra attention to the cars around me, so I can notice as early as possible if I’m about to be in a dangerous situation. Every time I drive, I strive to be the type of driver that driving school taught me to be.

As someone whose life was saved because of what I learned in driving school, I stand by the fact that the importance of thorough driver’s education cannot be emphasized enough. Just the amount of lives that are taken on the road – consistently around 40,000 a year – should be enough evidence that driving courses should be encouraged for everyone, not just teenagers learning how to drive, and it should be as accessible as possible. The more responsible the drivers, the safer the road – and being a safer driver benefits everyone, not just people who drive. It benefits the 5 year old child of the father who drives to work every day, and the retired grandfather of the 20-year-old college kid who drives to class. Having a car provides a world of freedom at your fingertips. But when you’re on the road, you and every other driver share the most important responsibility there is – the responsibility of keeping each other alive.