Safe Driving

Samantha Griffith

Chamberlain College of Nursing

Safe driving scholarship

The importance of driver education is to inform the new driver that accidents do happen and nobody is invincible to them. It is important to be observant and aware of your surroundings at all times. I think the where drivers education needs to be improved is there should be a section on real life incidents rather its stories from DUI drivers or survivors of accidents or family members who have lost loved ones…When I took Drivers ED at 15 1/2 I felt that the online school was just busy work and not very helpful as far as stressing the importance of driving. What I mean by this is a lot of it was common knowledge (turn your blinker on, be calm when you drive watch, out for the road etc.) I think if drivers education gave us a real life scenario of accidents or incident reports we would feel more compelled to drive safely.

I have been in an accident myself, I was 18 years old and I had just bought a brand new jeep all on my own and someone behind me was either texting or looking down and they rear ended me. Three years later I find out that my car was not able to be sold due to its accident report on Kelly-Blue book and it completely put me underwater in terms of finances. It is unfair that I was being responsible and worked hard for my vehicle to have someone be careless and take that away from me. Justice was truly never given in my situation.

Along with improvement to Drivers ED I think the steps that can be taken really begin with ourselves. We need to be aware of our mood and how that may affect our ability to dive safely. I am sure we are all guilty of running late or getting frustrated on the road but we need to limit those barriers because we could be putting ourselves and others at risk.

I also think that there needs to be more law enforcement around. I do not mean for just speeding but there are so many times I drive and there are cars weaving in and out of traffic or there are people texting that never get caught or do not seem phased with their personal behavior. There also needs to be a way where you can’t get into the car if you are under the influence no matter if you have a court order or not and your car should be able to alert you like the beeper on your seatbelt if it recognizes you are on your phone.

I also think that we as drivers should have more incentives of safe driving. For example, if we have a clean driving record with no tickets we should be awarded for it. Maybe a free month of insurance or we do not have to pay registration fees for that year. Or even points towards uber for the amount of times you choose to utilize those services instead of driving under the influence. We talk a lot about negatives and consequences for unsafe driving but I think it would be helpful to make it a positive reinforcement.