Driver in a Driver’s Seat

It was summer 2017 on a typical Saturday morning. Running out of food, my mom and I are off to Sam’s club to get food for our family of seven. It was on a nice drive with my mom, then the next thing, we were on a curb with a missing tire. Spring 2018, at the Chesapeake Bay bridge, my mom almost slams into the car in front of her. With so much traffic around, both situations would have been terrible accidents affecting many people’s lives forever… but they were not. My mom did three things in both experiences: 1) She automatically knew what to do, 2) kept her calm, 3) and acted. You cannot do the latter without making the first rule: Knowing what to do.

In the summer of 2017, we drove from Jersey City, New Jersey, on the Chesapeake Bay bridge. We were having a good time on our vacation, but my mom accidentally gets distracted and almost slams into a car. Before she collided, she quickly shifts the car into the free lane next to her. She was not drunk, she was not a teenager, but she was just an ordinary person who made a mistake. She could have gotten into an accident, but what made the difference was that she knew how to be in a driver’s seat. Driving is not driving without education, initiative, and experience because, without these factors, the number of deaths linked to accidents will keep increasing. Taking the initiative to learn, either through books, videos, or real people who have seen firsthand the consequence of irresponsible driving will reduce the numbers.

In the spring of 2018, my mom’s car tire bursts off unexpectedly, but she managed to get both of us to safety without fail with skillful control of the wheel. It was a scary experience for me as I was only fourteen years old, and I was grateful that my mom got us out of there in time. As a teenager myself, I look to people like my mom as a critical source of education, not just through wise words but through seeing firsthand the responsibility of having the wheel in your hands. I have started my driving journey this year, and with the help of friends, family, education, and experience, I am building my way up to becoming a driver.

Accidents, fatal or not, do not affect only the people in the accident; it goes beyond affecting these people’s families and friends, changing every one of their lives forever. Even though there was not any drinking or teenagers involved in my experiences, accidents will still happen. A perfect day can quickly become a nightmare. We all need to be prepared drunk or not, teen or not 1) Through taking the initiative to learn more and more about driver’s education, we will know what to do with the responsibility we will soon have 2) we will keep cl when facing unexpected conditions and 3) we will act. It is when we can do this, we will be a driver in a driver’s seat.