Staying Safe on the Roads

When you sit down and think about it, driving is easy. All you have to do is accelerate, break, and steer the wheel. However, once you add people into the mix, that’s when driving gets complicated and dangerous. The thing about driving with other drivers is they can be very unpredictable. After all, no one knows when they’re going to get in an accident, it just happens.

Surprisingly, you don’t need to pass a drivers education class in order to obtain a license. All you need to do is pass a written test and a driving test. The problem with this is that a lot of the questions on the written test are common sense and the driving test is really simple and doesn’t simulate normal driving. While most drivers education classes don’t simulate normal driving either, they at least teach you things you should know to be prepared for the “real world” of driving.

One major thing that drivers education focuses on is the effects of distracted driving. By showing graphic videos and providing descriptions of the consequences that can result from distracted driving such as death, the person attending the class is encouraged to pay more attention while driving. Another thing that drivers education stresses is to be aware of your surroundings. You can be driving just fine, but other drivers may cause disruptions in your flow so it is always important to be conscious of their actions in order to prevent accidents from occuring.

I can speak from experience when addressing the topic of being aware of others when driving. One day after school, I was driving home down a three lane road. I was in the leftmost lane. The road was empty except for a car that was slightly ahead of me in the middle lane. As we cruised down the road, the car in front of me suddenly tried to make a U-turn. There was no use of a blinker and the turn was coming from the middle lane which was illegal and illogical. I hit them and my car was totaled, but luckily no one was hurt. There was no way I could’ve known this was going to happen and it wasn’t my fault that it did, but there were some things I could’ve done to prevent it. Even though it is the other driver’s job to be aware of their surroundings too, I could’ve made myself safer had I kept a greater distance from the car so that I would have had more time to react to their unpredictability or I could’ve not driven in their blindspot. However, even though it sucked to be in an accident, it taught me something important. You should always be proactive when you drive and not reactive. Do your best not to put yourself in situations where you won’t be able to do anything if something goes wrong. If everyone followed that piece of advice, then the roads would be a lot safer for everyone.