Watching Out for Each Other

When I think back on it now, it is like it was happening in slow motion. Although it was years ago, I can still remember every detail. I remember the other car coming up alongside my dad as he was driving (I think I saw the car first because I was in the back seat). The driver was texting and coming up on us quickly. My dad commented something about “What is this car doing?” You see the road was about to drop to one lane and the driver coming up on our left was going to forced to come over. We kept driving and the other driver kept texting. And that was when it happened. The other car began to come over on us. My dad hit the brakes and my seatbelt locked up. But the other car must have been braking too – as if the other driver finally woke up and realized they were about to hit the center road divider. The other car kept coming over on us until we heard the dull thud of them crashing into the front left fender of our car.

Now that I, myself, am a driver and because of the driver’s education class I took along with defensive driving classes, I now realize that there were two people at fault that day. The first, obviously, was the driver who was texting. But the other was my dad. My dad saw that car coming up fast and realized that the road was narrowing and yet he “stood his ground” in his lane. What I learned in driver’s education is that it doesn’t matter that it was the other driver’s fault. The goal for all of us as drivers is to avoid the accident in the first place. My dad should have slowed down to help avoid the accident of the other driver. Legally, it probably was the other driver’s fault, but my dad have made decisions himself to help avoid the accident.

This is why driver’s education is so important. We have to not just learn the rules. We need to learn how to keep one another safe on the roads, especially since we know that there are plenty of drivers who will disregard safe driving methods. I learned that beyond the rules there are many things I can do as a driver that reduce the chances that I’ll get caught up in an accident, whether it is my fault or not. Understanding statistics and facts about distracted driving, impaired driving, and driving while texting can help us realize not to do those things. And I take that seriously when I am driving and when my friends drive. But driver’s education taught me that those still might be done by others. And I learned that I need to be active when I am driving to watch out for those other drivers to do my part to keep us all safe.

I talked to my dad what I learned about that accident in driver’s ed. We need to drive in this way and we need to encourage the people we love to do the same.