Saving Lives With Driver’s Education

Imagine driving on a dark, winter’s night. The cold, gusting wind beats against the car windows adding acoustics to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Your friends are in the back seat screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs, shoving their cameras in your face to capture the intense holiday spirit of the moment. Distracted by their camera flash, you realize you missed the stop sign at the intersection; but it’s too late to panic. Slamming on the brakes, the car swerves over the black ice and into a lamp post. Bouncing off the post, the car soars a few feet into the air, flipping over the sidewalk, crashing into a front yard, shaking the entire neighborhood. With the windows shattered, doors hanging by a thread, friends passed out, and a red mailbox creeping through the sunroof, you want to scream in terror – not a word comes out. You can’t. You can’t process what just happened. Tragedies like this only happen on the news, right? Shock turns into fear. Imagine if this were real. Having never been in an accident before, I don’t want to imagine.

According to the University of Nebraska, teenage drivers who haven’t completed driver’s education are “24 percent more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury accident and 16 percent more likely to have an accident.” Since their results were based on a study of 150,000, that means 36,000 young drivers in Nebraska alone would have been affected by an accident. That’s almost 16,000 more people than Capital One Arena’s maximum capacity. Despite the horrific statistic, only 32 states in the country require driver’s education for a license.

A key tactic Maryland driver’s education uses is fear. Though it may seem immoral, the fear brought by images of car crashes, stories from parent’s who have lost a child, or speeches made by those eternally affected, scare young drivers out of driving unsafely. This includes distracted driving, drunk driving, driving over the speed limit, etc. Additionally, driver’s education teaches students the rules of the road. An important skill I remember was the right rule: if multiple cars arrive at an intersection simultaneously, the car on the right always goes first. If I never attended driver’s education, I could have crossed the intersection at the wrong time and gotten hit by another car.

Though it is evident that driver’s education is necessary, 18 states don’t require driver’s education because many of their teens can’t afford the course. Dropping the cost from $300 to $0 would be possible if the government funded the courses with taxpayer money. Without required payment, those states can enforce driver’s education without worrying about its financial impact. Other steps myself and others could take are to check the car’s features before driving, avoid distractions, obey traffic laws, never drive under the influence, and never hesitate- hesitation sends confusing signals to drivers around you. By following these steps, drivers are destined to be safer on the roads.