Name: Rebecca Schmanke
From: Hazel Green, AL
Votes: 0
‘Driving 101’ my
mother dubbed it; an accumulation of tips and tricks she had learned
from her 40 plus years of driving, now to be proudly passed down to
me. I took them then, when I began driving, and still apply them now.
They are general rules, really: use your signal when turning, make
sure to turn on your hazards, pull over for emergency vehicles, etc.
I have, as I said, applied these rules when I drive, however there
are many who share the same lanes that I do that do not. Personally,
I do not know of too many people who have gotten into accidents, but
I have seen enough flipped cars on the side of the road to understand
that this is an increasing issue. I have witnessed, many a time, a
hurried driver weaving inbetween lanes, or someone texting while they
drive – what I realize, and they don’t, is that they could soon
become that flipped car.
I think one of my
mother’s best tips was to remember that nothing is more important
than the road ahead of you. As phones become a more popular asset,
the numbers of accidents increase. It isn’t just phones, really –
it’s far more. I’ve seen everything from someone doing their makeup
to another reading the newspaper. We all have so much going on in our
busy lives that we believe we can take our eyes off of the road for a
split second, though we find ourselves drifting into other lanes, or
perhaps off of the road entirely. People will tell you that they text
and drive, I have heard it myself, but they will not tell you about
the utter chill shock that goes up their spine everytime they almost
collide with a car, nor will they tell you of the minutes, perhaps
hours, they spend nulling over the ‘what ifs’ of the situation that
could have come into play if they had reacted any slower. Yet the end
result is always the same: they keep doing it. Why? They believe they
are invincible.
They give us
distracted driving courses and all, but the numbers continue to
skyrocket. Teenagers believe what they wish and act on that. They
have this belief that they are invincible, therefore they
continuously make these hazardous actions because they want to. This
renders all these lessons practically ineffective to those who do not
wish to hear them. However, this does not mean that driving education
courses, especially in schools, do not need work. The most important
thing is to treat them seriously. My course was, to put it simply,
treated as a joke, and I know many other’s were like that as well. If
we treat it as it deserves to be, a serious issue, perhaps it will
attract more attention. All that can be done is bring more awareness,
and become better drivers with those ‘101’ tips; for there are many
more competent drivers than there is incompetent.
