There’s Only One Road to a Safe Driver

“Thank god I have to wear this mask,” I thought as my chest rapidly rose up and down. I had nearly gotten into a collision and I knew that my mistake could have been costly. Riddled with guilt and anxiety, my face mask covered my frown and ,hopefully, my labored breathing as I tried to continue on the road.

Learning how to drive during is never a fun experience. Learning how to drive during a pandemic is even more dreadful. These were the things I came to learn over the course of my summer, through sessions of driving with my dad and driving instructors. Driving seemed to be a puzzle that I could not crack no matter how hard I tried. It seemed that the ways of the road would always be lost on me. I feared that all of my hard work would be for naught, come test day. After countless mistakes and errors, I felt hopeless and simply did not know what to do anymore.

It was then that I realized I needed to return to the fundamentals. I hunkered down with my laptop and read up on all that I could about the rules of the road and watched videos on Youtube of seasoned drivers explaining their tips and tricks. Before every drive, I would educate myself more and more about what safe drivers do and how they deal with sudden obstacles. As I learned more and more through driver’s education, the confidence I had in myself naturally came along with it too. I could feel myself improving and I knew it was because of my decision to take driver education more seriously. Before I knew it, it was the big day and lo and behold, I passed! I was now a fully-fledged driver with a shiny new license to show for it.

Besides mere anecdotes, there is definitive data to show that drivers’ education is effective and worthwhile. According to the New York Times, ever since Oregon made the decision to establish stricter and more thorough drivers education there has been a “reduction of more than 55 percent in the number of 16-year-olds behind the wheel when someone is killed or injured in a crash and a drop of almost 40 percent for 17-year-olds.” In addition, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finds that “since states began enacting graduated licensing laws in 1996, the teenage death rate [has] decreased steadily.”

I think my commitment to drivers education truly benefited me greatly, reducing stress about the road, educating me about signs and certain road marks, and instilling proper etiquette while behind the wheel. Drivers education is such a crucial step in the process of learning to drive and it is one that should never be taken lightly. I wholeheartedly think that if you want to continue being safe on the road, you should stay updated and informed about safe driving habits and driving regulations. I know that if we all did our part in educating ourselves through driver education, we could make the streets safer for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.