Name: Caroline Hornsby
From: Perry, Florida
Votes: 0
When growing up, most children dream of the day they get to be behind
the wheel of an automobile and drive to their heart’s content. The
reason why; freedom. The ability to go anywhere in the world, at the
tip of our fingers, just waiting until we turn the glorious age of
15. This desire for freedom makes most people completely forget about
the number one important key to being able to drive; the safety
education courses.
My school has a JROTC program that I have been lucky enough to be a
part of for the last three years. Through the many years we have done
numerous amounts of activities to get us prepared for the real world.
One of which was a driver safety simulation course at our local
technical college. During this course we were put into countless
amounts of different situations and were taught, step by step, how to
react properly to each. The situation I vividly remember being a part
of was named “The Madman”. It is exactly what you might imagine.
There was a driver to our left in the fast lane that had had a bad
day at work and was going through a custody battle with his cranky
ex-wife. Due to all this pressure and negativity in his life, he was
angry and frustrated which lead him to drive recklessly. The teacher
began to describe to us that they were swerving left and right,
speeding up then beak checking suddenly, and just not paying
attention at all. Thanks to these teachers and instructors, we
learned the proper way to deal with this type of situation.
My friend from a few years ago attended the same simulation course
but did not engage herself or pay attention and even lead herself to
believe that it was ok and legal to drive home after having drank a
beer at her sister’s house. Her drive started out just fine. She
even made it halfway home. Until a car sped through a yellow light
behind her and, due to her delayed reaction time, crashed into her
bumper when she didn’t speed up to accommodate for the other
driver’s speed. While this crash thankfully did not kill her, it
very well could have. All because she never paid attention during
driver safety courses. I believe everyone should attend courses like
these because while they are serious and should be taken as such, it
is still fun and engaging enough so that you are not bored and easily
distracted. While there will always be the few, like my friend, who
will not participate, this could be an excellent way to educate the
public on safe driving while also lowering the number of deaths due
to driving.
