driving safety

Driving is one of the best privileges you can earn in this modern society. Driving is amazing; its benefits outweigh the cost when you are an informed and safe driver. When you finally finish your training and your classes and finally get your license you feel so enthusiastic and happy and excited and you wanna drive everywhere and show off to all your friends and your family. When you first get your license at 16 you’re excited and overly confident and think you can do anything. But the truth is most teenage drivers are stupid and reckless and don’t know what they’re doing. Reckless drivers are very much so a public issue. They are a danger to themselves and to the the people around them It’s this simple: new teenage drivers make up 8.1 percent of crashes but only make up 5 percent of licensed drivers. New drivers make up a majority of vehicular accidents resulting in death, but thank god for drivers education. I can guarantee you this number would be much much higher if it weren’t for driver’s education. Driver’s education helps save countless lives by teaching new drivers the ropes, there doing the best they can but there not doing enough. Driver training plays such an important role in a young driver’s life and education but in my experience drivers ed is teaching the wrong idea. My drivers education classes I took in my small town tried to scare us into being a safe driver and that’s a pretty decent approach but after a while that fear of driving disappears and dissipates. I believe driver’s education needs to be more focused on teaching these kids facts and the truth and not attempting to just scare them into not being reckless and stupid. They need to be giving these people statistics and real life stories and show them videos and teach them what to do in these situations and how to prevent accidents. Knowledge is power and drivers education doesn’t give out enough knowledge about real world experience to help keep these new drivers safe. Their main focus should be teaching safety in all circumstances, not trying to create fear so they don’t speed and don’t cut people off and don’t do stupid reckless things. The problem is teenagers are stupid and reckless and don’t care. Or they haven’t been taught enough real world experience to know what they’re doing is dangerous and reckless and they’re just unsure how to be a safe driver on the road. The reality is if we don’t educate these new driver’s enough they could kill someone. I think new teenage drivers face many challenges. I think one of the biggest problems with new teenage drivers is addiction. Addiction is one of the most difficult challenges to overcome and you still will be addicted even while driving. Over 50 percent of teenagers are addicted to their phone. 40 percent of teenagers have admitted to being on their phone while driving. 40 percent of teenagers have admitted to being addicted to vapes and cigarettes. 9-10 percent of teenagers are addicted to alcohol. I think this is one of the biggest problems teenage drivers face. They think to themselves, let me send a text message or let me pull out my vape. I’ll be fine and they take their eyes off the road for a second but the problem is 4.25 car accidents happen a second. It takes 3.15 seconds to cross a football field at 65 mps and that’s not accounting for if there speeding on the highway. An experience I had that really showed me how important safe driving habits are Is a guy cut me off. I was on a one way highway going 65 and he pulled out directly in front of me. The only reason i didnt hit him was that I was able to pass him. My brakes would not have been enough. I would have rear ended that guy if i didn’t pass him. Some actions we can take to promote safer driving to younger people is to stress the dangers of driving. And I believe schools and communities should have defensive driving classes that are optional and will pay or give out scholarships for young drivers who take these classes. As a community we can possibly decrease the number of reckless teenage drivers on the road by hosting events with the sheriff office. The sheriffs and cops should come to a community driving event and show real video of the consequences of being a reckless driver. Don’t try to scare the kids but explain to them the consequences of what reckless driving are and what could happen.