Driver Education

Driving is an amazing privilege that we get to use, but when we use it irresponsibly and dangerously we are abusing that privilege. In order to reduce the risk of abusing this privilege it is important that future drivers are educated on how to be safe while they are operating a vehicle.

I took a drivers education course before I got my license, and ever since then I have noticed several things that my parents do while they are driving that could easily lead to an accident. Some of these things are small, such as not leaving enough space between cars while they are stopped at a light, but some of them are much bigger, such as texting while driving. Now, every time I notice my parents doing something unsafe while driving, I remind them that what they are doing is not only putting their lives at risk, but also my life and the lives of those around us.

It can be hard to imagine how many people are actually dying from bad driving habits, but when compared to a war it is a little easier to imagine. The Korean War had a fatality total of 33,686 people after 3 years of war. In 2012 about 33,000 people died from being in a car accident. Many people are not aware of how many lives are lost each year from dangerous drivers, so they don’t put much thought into their own careless habits. Lots of people tell themselves that they won’t get killed in a wreck because they are prepared and they are a good driver. However, driving is more than just about one person. Driving is about everyone on the road, which is why it is so important that everyone on the road is educated about the dangers of being on the road. If everyone was educated on how to be a safe driver, the amount of fatal accidents would drop tremendously because people would be aware of how their carelessness affects those around them.

In order to make the roads a safer place for everyone, an important first step is to make driver education classes mandatory before being able to get your license. If every single person that could legally operate a vehicle had been trained in how to be a safe driver, there would be so many more people on the road that are looking out for more than just themselves. People would be less likely to grab their phones while driving, because they would remember videos from their driver education classes depicting a distracted driver being killed in an accident. People would avoid tailgating and dangerously speeding, because they would remember how easy it is to get in an accident when you are not giving other cars the proper amount of space. Driver’s education would drastically reduce the amount of deaths caused by car accidents because it would ingrain in people’s minds that driving is about more than just themselves.

Personally, I can be a better driver by remembering that being late is better than never getting the chance to show up at all. It is easy to get swept up in the tide of speeding when everyone else around you is speeding. But it is also important to remember that even though others are doing it does not mean that you have to do it too. There is a very fine line between going with the flow of other drivers and driving recklessly, and luckily drivers education helps new drivers stay on the safe side of that line.

Overall, it is very important that new drivers take a drivers education course because over time more and more drivers will understand how to drive safely. Once people know how to drive safely they will remember that the road has more people on it than just them, and the fatality rates from driving will drastically decrease.