Driving Education Needs to be Expanded

What is the importance of driver education in reducing the number deaths as a result of driving? What steps can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving? Have you ever had an experience of being in a car accident or have seen your friends or family members driving irresponsibly? What steps can you take to be a better and safer driver as well as help others become safer on the road?

Car crashes are dangerous accidents that are unnecessarily plaguing our streets. On average, over 1,250,000 people die annually of traffic accidents, while over 4,400,000 people are seriously injured. Although some of these crashes are honest mistakes, a lot of them are due to someone who doesn’t know the rules of the road, distracted drivers texting or even a drunk driver. These scenarios are a product of a lack of driver’s education. I’ll never forget an activity that showed that your reaction time is slower while texting than when you are drunk. To prevent these things from happening in the future, people need to be more educated on the rules of the road.

When kids become sophomores in high school, they are placed into a driver’s education class. This class is vital, as these kids need to learn the the nuances of driving to be able to get their permit and eventually their license. However, after these four short months of learning how to be responsible when driving, education on this topic ends. We need continued education several years after their sophomore year so they can talk about their experiences on the road with an instructor who can talk them through these situations and the correct actions to take. A lot of adults feel that kids need to “get a feel for driving” and “ learn from their experiences,” but it is very hard to learn from your experiences if you don’t have someone by your side to help you through your confusing times on the road.
A scary experience I had was one time I was on delivery for work dropping off food for a party at a local ballroom (pre covid era), and I was driving with my boss because I was not yet old enough to drive alone, for I had not yet turned seventeen. Although my boss had been driving much longer than I had been, he did not seem to understand the rules of the road, and because I was currently learning how to drive and started paying attention to how other’s drove their cars, I could see that he was a real danger to the other drivers on the road. I feel that if he had learned how to drive better earlier on in life, maybe he would understand these rules better and would not be as sporadic as he was. However, there is not enough driver’s education at people’s disposal, so there are many drivers like this who are a threat to others while on the road.

Driver’s education is a very important issue that must be fixed. This would open up more jobs for people along with educating new and older drivers about the importance of being safe and following the rules out on the road. Although it is important to get a feel for everything by going out and driving, education needs to continue past sophomore year in high school because one split decision could change someone’s life forever.