In Only A Moment

In Only A Moment

It was a quiet night. The sky was clear except for the speckled stars scattered like paint dripping onto a black canvas. The moon shined the brightest, every crater and shadow piercing down through the crisp, refreshing air that comes as fall fades to winter. However, even with this light, the trees around me fogged over the small void of the road, making my once moonlit spotlight into a dark emptiness. The only guiding light was the dim headlights of my 1992 truck, still moving along at a cool 54 miles per hour on an empty road. The smell of corn fields and home cooking hung in the air with a sweet aroma that helped to easy my worries of driving at such a late hour. I had the music playing loud in an attempt to calm my mind from a long day at work, seeking shelter and peace within the metal walls of my Ford. Everything seemed ordinary: the sky, the smells, the sounds; nothing was out of place on my journey home in solitude. But I soon learned this can all change in only a moment.

The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recommends at least 45 hours of driving experience before attaining a license and driving alone. 45 hours in any road condition, whether it be sunny skies or rainy days, people can be given a full license without ever experiencing the roads at their worst. Even if students read off of textbooks or hear a lecture, how quickly conditions can change is never introduced. One vehicle crashes make up 61 percent of fatal crashes across the United States meaning that people are fatally crashing their cars due to distracted driving, inclement weather conditions, or unforeseen obstacles in the road. Educating individuals and testing them before they take the cars off the lot is not enough to prepare them for extreme but not uncommon situations on the road.

Even when I was at my calmest, in a vehicle I was comfortable in, a deer ran in front of my truck, as if coming out of thin air and was so large it seemed to engulf the entire side of the road. Within the same second it appeared I swerved into the other lane for traffic, speeding into a hill with an unknown obstacle at the top. My body swayed, my heart pounded, and my hands were shaking at the thought of the large buck coming through the windshield, crushing me as my truck moved along at the will of the road. This singular moment in my young driving career exposed me to the idea of crashes being more than those isolated events you hear in the news. They can happen at any time to anyone and this is a fact all people must understand before they start their vehicles.

With car crashes beginning so prevalent in the United States, I believe there are creative and innovative solutions to this age old problem. Driving simulation can prove to be the future of driving education courses, giving students hands-on experience of how to handle every road condition in a virtual setting. Students can be taught rather than told how to handle hydroplaning or engine failure. They can practice faster reaction times for cases like the one I went through, moving out of danger without harming anyone else around. Instead of dusty textbooks, new drivers can use computer simulated situations, seeing the event play out and handling it properly. Education like this will make the difference between drivers reacting to a life or death situation and them taking control of it, especially when the majority of crashes only involve one car.

Driving simulations are becoming more and more commonplace and I often encourage my friends and family members to take part in one or two a month to have a better understanding of how to react in dangerous driving conditions. This not only allows us to feel better prepared but it gives the ones close to us peace of mind when they see us take the road. After my close call I made it a priority to be a safer driver and I only hope that new approaches to driver education will have more people prepared in their vehicles and less lives will be lost.