Before You Turn the Key: What Every Ohio Teen Needs to Know About Driving

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens in the United States, another week is another young life lost in Ohio. We have all been in high school and remember hearing stories of kids getting into wrecks after just receiving driver’s licenses. I was one of those kids and so has been my best friend since elementary school. First, my brother and I were super blessed to come out alive and uninjured and so were the people on the other end. I remember it was me and my brother driving home from movies in Polaris. I stupidly was on my phone texting while driving and I ran a red light. I say stupidly because it’s never a good idea to text while driving. I still to this day make sure if I need to text someone I do it before or after I drive to insure the safeties of myself, who may ever be in the car with me, and also those on the road. Not only is it important to never text while driving, if you wreck and end up killing someone even if you come out alive you will never feel the same again. You even will end up with the possibility of being convicted of vehicular manslaughter even if you didn’t intend to harm someone. This can drastically change you and your families life because you can be faced with more consequences than just jail/prison time. You will face the fact that you have just killed someone or possibly more than just one person and lose opportunities in life you weren’t even expecting to have. You will miss out spending time with your family, you’ll miss every birthday and every holiday your family will spend with each other, all because you couldn’t wait until you got home. Now think, is one simple text worth your life or possibly others? Life itself is already too short as it is. Think before you do anything ever, as this is the best advice I have for upcoming drivers in not just Ohio but the world. If I would’ve ended up killing my brother or others, I know I wouldn’t be able to live with the consequences all because of a silly text message. Just please for your sake and others, just wait until you arrive.

Now I have told my personal story of a car wreck, I have another story to tell young teens out there who have begun driving. There was a kid at my school named Brandon who was 16 at the time, who just received his license. It was very late past midnight and he was driving home from a friend’s house. He was intoxicated which is already illegal since he was under 21 years of age. As he was driving down a road near his house he ended up losing control of his vehicle and crashed into a tree ending his life. I personally didn’t know the kid or his family but he was too young to lose his life. Now, I can’t sit here and lecture you what to do and not to do because everyone is human and has free will, but just understand what your family will have to go through because you decided to become intoxicated and get behind the wheel. Your family will have to pay for a funeral for a kid who hasn’t even graduated high school yet. Not to mention that they already have to deal with the fact that their youngest kid passed away. I personally am 20 years old in college and I will never ever get behind the wheel of a vehicular even if I had the smallest sip of alcohol, because I don’t want my parents last memory of me being I decided to drive while intoxicated. Not only this but I fear I will lose control but not only might I end up hurting someone else and or myself, I could end up killing someone else and like I mentioned before I wouldn’t want to live with those consequences. I can’t stress enough how important it is to drive as safely as possible, meaning no drugs, no alcohol, and no other distractions. You can do some serious damage to others by not only murdering someone because of your actions but also their family has to live with the fact their child was killed because someone decided to be intoxicated while driving. Moral of the story, drive safely with precautions and always be a defensive driver because you never know what might happen on the road.