Name: Ariana Karakostas
From: Smithtown, New York
Votes: 0
When
I got into my first accident, I was eleven years old. I was with my
brother of seven and my grandmother who was driving. It was summer
vacation and we didn’t have to worry about going to sleep at nine
pm, or doing our homework right when we get home. We were at the
clothing stores leaving the parking lot. My brother and I thought we
were cool kids and sitting in the back seat, we didn’t need to wear
seatbelts since nothing was going to happen to us. As we were leaving
the parking lot, all noisy and jumping around, in a second, my vision
of my brother and grandmother went blurry and faint. In one second, I
could see white and the feeling of dizziness was over me. I didn’t
know where I was or what had happened. My whole left side of my body
was stuck in the car because the dent on the whole left side went in
toward my body where the other driver had hit when she was coming out
of her parking lot. My brother was ok since he was sitting on the
right side, but my grandmother and I were stuck to the inside of the
car. I was in more shock than my grandmother because I never thought
that this would ever happen to me in my life.
When
I took drivers ed last year (junior year), the videos that
were shown to me were gruesome and nothing like I would have ever
imagined. Even being in an accident, I was still naïve on the road.
There were visuals in those videos that I would’ve never thought
would happen. The younger generation is so new to these events and
don’t think accidents could happen to us, but they can happen to
anyone at any given time, no matter how great the driver can be.
In
order to reduce the amount of accidents from occurring, I believe it
starts with the beginning stages of a new driver. When young drivers
start on the road, they should be with an adult even when they
receive their license and telling them what they are doing right and
wrong because if they haven’t been on the road for that long, they
won’t be learning what’s important to keeping them safe on the
road. Even texting is a big issue today than it ever has been, which
in my opinion, would be a reason why younger drivers get into
accidents. Texting and speeding should be the leading causes of teen
accidents.
I
had to overcome these challenges overtime on my own by learning to
trust whom we’re driving with. The only ones we have to trust are
the people we’re in the car with. It’s essential to know our
limits and to trust what is or isn’t the right thing to do. As we
get older, it’s easier to depict these obstacles, but it’s always
a cautious thing to do no matter what age.
