Select Page

Round 3 – Don’t Get Drunk, And Buckle Up

Name: Ellen R Smegner
From: St louis, MO
Votes: 0

Don’t Get Drunk, And Buckle Up

Driver Education Initiative Scholarship Essay

Ellen Smegner

Don’t Get Drunk, And Buckle Up

In America, an average of 34,000 people die each year as a result of driving. This number is astronomical considering that with technology advancing in cars, they should be safer. Sadly not everyone can’t afford the newest safest cars, therefore people have to be able to drive safely all by themselves. America has people take a permit test consisting of questions about what you need to know for driving. After you’ve passed is when the driving tests are given to prove your a safe driver for yourself, and everyone else. In this essay I will discuss the importance of driver education, how to limit the amount of automobile accidents and safety tips, and my own stories with driving.

There are a lot of driving schools to be offered to up-and-coming drivers. The reality is, it is not mandatory, therefore people learn from family or friends. If everyone had to go to driving school I believe that more people would be better drivers. Also as I said before, we have to take a permit test and pass to be eligible for a permit/licence, but most of the time people just memorize the answers to pass, not to learn from it. The drivers test is definitely where the truth comes out. You have a driving instructor watching your every move to see if you’re confident in what you’re doing, and also cautious for other drivers. I would say that the drivers test is the best way to see if someone is good at driving or not.

I believe a way to limit the amount of automobile accidents would be to cut down on drunk drivers and phone users. As a senior in highschool, I’m obsessed with my phone, but I still make sure that I have a playlist that I like set up before I put my car in drive, and my phone on car mode to prevent accidents. As for drunk drivers, once you turn 21, I think that everyone should be mandated to have a breathalyzer in their car. I’m currently in AP Psychology and learned that because alcohol is a depressant, it inhibits activity in the frontal lobe, so when a person is drunk they feel more confident and believe that they can drive. This confidence is what causes accidents. To try and stop this from happening from the start, I think that after your driving test is done they should put on drunk goggles and take a field sobriety test to see how dangerous it is.

As for my own experiences, when I was a kid, my family and I were coming home from our aunt and uncle’s house when a drunk driver ran a red light and crashed into us. We were driving a Ford F350 truck and the drunk drivers were in a small car. Luckily our truck didn’t kill the people in the small car, but both parties were injured and both cars were totaled. Even though I was a kid I still remember the crash and I advise my friends and everyone to never drink and drive.

In conclusion, driver education is highly important and affects not only you, but the people surrounding you. As for limiting the amount of accidents, 1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving, and every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes. For Americans being headstrong and thinking it won’t happen to them, take it from me when I was an 8 year old, I never thought it would happen then either.