With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility – the Privilege To Drive

A woman is driving herself to work in November of 2019, thinking about her students at the college she teaches at. A red light is ahead of her, and she slows down when suddenly there’s a jolt and she goes flying headfirst into the steering wheel. Dazed, she realizes that she had been hit from behind. EMTs arrive onsite, and the scene begins to get taken care of. She goes to the hospital, where her husband took her. The dump truck driver gets a citation for reckless driving. And the minivan she was driving was towed as half of it was crumpled inward. That morning, she was just expecting to give her students her children’s extra Halloween candy. Instead, she ended up in the emergency room with an injury that would impact the rest of her life.

That woman is my mom. While she was at the hospital, I was at my elementary school. I hung out with my friends, then took the bus home to my rural house with my sister. My dad met me at the bottom of the hill and informed me of the crash. She had obtained a bad concussion and had a broken nose. I went inside my house to see her and she still had the hospital bracelet on her wrist. I cried out of fear. I cried that day, and I cried the next day at school as well.

My mom was not able to return to teaching that semester, nor was she able to for another year. By the time she may have been able to return, the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing. Meanwhile, her concussion had changed her. She had vision issues, and vertigo would hit her. Loud sounds would cause problems. She went to multiple doctors, and started exercises and different medicines. Watching her come home with different shades of glasses and new exercises she would occasionally need my help with would always arouse a haunted sort of interest in me. I understood fundamentally what happened, but didn’t really understand its full implications. Meanwhile, my mom wasn’t able to look at screens for extended periods of time. She couldn’t drive for more than an hour, which led to my dad doing a majority of driving on our numerous road trips. However, slowly she began to get better, and she still is improving. Long days of travel are still rough, and she still has colorful glasses and special monitors for teaching 1-2 classes a semester from home.

I was 10 when the crash happened. I had barely been out of booster seats for a year. I was young, and couldn’t possibly understand what actually happened. I never really had to think about the responsibility, until I turned 15, and submitted my test to get my learners permit, and began my lessons on driving. It felt serious to me. My parents stressed every time I drove how it was not just my life and my family’s lives that were in the hands on the steering wheel, but also everyone else that I shared the road with. One mistake can change people’s lives together. So I took it seriously. If other teens might have laughed about getting into a fender bender with one of their friends, I would realize that it could have been worse, much worse. My mom’s accident taught me that, from a young age.

I got my license in May of this year, which again was a totally new experience for me. The first time I got to drive alone with my sister, my dad gave me the same lecture before handing my keys. He told me “this is the most responsible thing that you have ever done. I’m trusting you with your sister’s life”. It made an exciting moment for me have a more serious tone, which was good. Driving is a privilege that teenagers get, but I don’t think enough realize how easily that privilege can go wrong.

In 2021, more than 200,000 teenage drivers were injured in crashes. Of that number, 2,116 of them were killed. That is almost six deaths a day, in just the United States. How many of them were due to someone being distracted while driving? Well, 8% of all fatal crashes are due to distracted driving. Using those statistics, there would be 169 people still alive today if people had stayed focused while driving. If it hasn’t happened to you, then it may not seem like a big deal. However, to the friends and families of the 169 teens that died in car accidents, it would mean the difference between a lifetime of joy and a lifetime of grief

I think part of the reason that teenagers don’t take driving very seriously is because they don’t understand how life ruining accidents can be. That’s why it should be important for students in drivers education to learn from people who have firsthand stories of how lives can be affected by an accident. A five minute video from a survivor showing what their life was like before and after the crash could easily change perspective. While some teens may never truly understand the full implications, some others may feel empathy when hearing stories and vow to become safer drivers. The littlest changes, one student at a time, can have greater effects far beyond what any of them will ever know.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like right now if my mom had never gotten in that crash in the first place. She might be teaching at a high school full time right now, like she wanted to. On the other hand, I might’ve never fully understood how dangerous driving can be. I might still be thinking that car crashes are things that happen to other people, that it would never happen to me. I might be like other teens and just speed my way through life, or wait until the last second to brake, or check my texts on the road. While I would never say that I wish that all teens have to know someone that went through the same experience my mom went through, because I know how hard that can be, I would hope that someday teenagers become more educated on the dangers of driving. I hope that if they can learn the risks, they will be vigilant drivers, and never put anyone in the same situation that dump truck driver put my mom in.

Works Cited

“The Dangers of Distracted Driving.” Federal Communications Commission, 8 April 2025, https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/dangers-texting-while-driving. Accessed 4 July 2025.

US Department of Transportation. “2021 Data: Young Drivers.” 2021. Accessed 4 July 2025.