The Importance of Driver’s Education

Julia Holsapple

11/17/2020

The Importance of Driver’s Education

Education of any kind is crucial to society and even survival, and driver’s education is no exception. What makes driver’s ed so important is that it teaches us how to be safe when driving an automobile, as well as teaching us how to drive one in the first place.

Though even with the quality of education we have right now, we still have crashes and deaths. The reason I believe to be most likely is that the education system is too similar to that of grade school, which has been discussed multiple times to be flawed. The way tests and quizzes are administered are not effective, even if students don’t cheat. The typical quiz/test survival guide is to remember facts and regurgitate them on the test/quiz once administered, and then those are forgotten, perhaps as soon as one gets their driver’s license.

Regurgitating facts is not enough. It’s not even fun for most of us. Practice is what really sets in safe driving behavior.

Sure, the driving curriculum sets in the requirement to do a certain amount of driving practice on their own with their parents or a trustworthy guardian, however, speaking from personal experience, I don’t think this is enough either. I struggled to meet the required time because both of my parents had trouble being there to help me. My mother suffers from chronic fatigue, so she is often incapable of even paying attention to my driving, and my father refuses to help me. Instructors are an option, and we did hire one, but in my case, it started getting too expensive to afford one long enough to meet the required time. I had no choice but to lie about how long I actually practiced in my driving log.

Unfortunately, I have been in an accident, though thankfully it wasn’t too horrible. My accident just involved me hitting a parked car while I was on my way to jury duty.

I imagine this being helped by offering practice during class. I think this will be best because practice time can be sensibly scheduled during class and not rely on the student’s family to teach the student. I understand this is going to require a lot more funding to afford having instructors being around longer to assist students, as well as more instructors in general, and perhaps funding for some more practice parks (though driving on the actual road is fine too). I wholly believe funding this is possible, whether that’d be by fundraisers or by rearranging government funding.

As for my part, I will acknowledge other factors of unsafe driving, such as drunk or otherwise unconscious driving, and make sure I remain conscious, alert, and well rested whenever I drive.