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Round 3 – Drive Safely for Yourself and Others

Name: Brianna Barnes
From: Cibolo, Texas
Votes: 0

Drive Safely for Yourself and Others

2

Brianna Barnes

Driver Education Essay

30 November 2020

Drive Safely for Yourself and Others

As teenagers, we hold many risks within this period of our life where we are transitioning into adulthood. One of the most important and dangerous things we must learn to do is drive. Driving puts both yourself and those around you at an extremely high risk. This risk factor does disappear as you mature, but it can decrease as you drive safely and continue to apply the driver safe rules provided to you. These rules are what will keep both you and those around you on the road safe from any collisions.

When learning to drive, it is important that you both understand and apply the information given to you. For example, you are taught that when you see a yellow light, you only continue driving through it if you are too close to the light to brake safely. If you continue to drive through that light and it becomes red, you are putting both yours and others lives at risk by possibly causing an accident. Small and common knowledge like this is taught in almost all driving institutions, websites, or books, along with many more provided rules to keep you and those around you safe at all times.

At seventeen years old, I experienced one car crash in my life. I was around twelve years old when my dad was texting while driving, and ran through a red light. His bumper was completely taken off, but thankfully no one got hurt. This shows how as you mature and become more experienced, you will be more comfortable driving, but does not mean it is okay to break rules like texting and driving. It put not only his life but my life and the other drivers’ life at risk.

Other than my personal experience, I have many other family members and friends who have gotten in much worse car accidents. Not all of them were their faults either. One was hit by someone not paying attention at a stop light and the front right side of his car was taken off. The other was hit from behind when she was stopped in traffic on the highway. There may be times when you find yourself in positions like this where there is almost nothing you can do to get yourself out of the crash. That is when knowing ways to brace for impact in a crash and knowing how to escape a car for personal safety are important to learn and understand also.

Driving is a skill many will learn at a young age, and it is a skill you will continue to use for the rest of your life. In Texas, there were about 612.52 crashes per 100 million vehicles in 2019. These crashes do not include the number of people in each vehicle, the amount of fatalities, or the number of cars involved. When driving you always need to be aware of your surroundings and need to be sure you are following the rules of the road in order to keep yourself and those driving with you safe on your trip. And do not forget your seatbelt!

Citation:

Texas Department of Transportation (State of Texas). Texas Motor Vehicle Crash Statistics – 2019, www.txdot.gov/government/enforcement/annual-summary.html.