The Importance of Drivers Education

One of the most exciting things that you can do on your 16th birthday is to go and get your learner’s permit. This slip of paper allows the owner to get behind the wheel of a 4,000-pound machine and drive around with it, but only for certain hours during the day and they must have a parent in the car with them. That’s only for a few short months though, as 6 months after you get your permit you can get your license. But before you get your license you not only need a certain amount of driving hours, including hours driving at night, you also need to take a driver’s safety course. These drivers education courses have the power to save new driver’s lives. Although driver safety courses might seem like a waste of time, these courses provide important tips to new drivers to reduce the amount of car-related deaths and to help them become better drivers.

In most states, teens are told to take a drivers safety course before being able to get their license, but it is not required. These courses significantly lower the percent of teens getting a traffic ticket by 75 percent and also lowers the percent of teens getting into a fatal accident by 24 percent. In these classes, teens are taught about important road signs, consequences of driving under the influence, what a driver should do when involved in an accident, and many other important skills that they might not learn otherwise. Parents have been driving for much longer so they are experienced but they most likely don’t follow the rules correctly. In order to take the road test, teens need to know precisely what to do regarding any situation that is thrown at them during the test. A parent might teach them what to do but it could be incorrect and cause the teen to not get their liscense. The teachers at drivers ed are much more qualified to teach these things than the parents of the teens. If some teens didn’t take the courses, they might have gotten into many more accidents. They were able to avoid fatal accidents and accidents in general thanks to these drivers courses, and many also became better drivers than before they started taking the course.

Approximately 33,000 people die in motor vehicle crashes each year. Out of this number, around 2,100 deaths are of young drivers. Multiple steps can be taken to lower this number, one of which is making drivers ed required. This is kind of hard to obtain as there are many drivers on the road that havent taken drivers ed before, but it will greatly benefit younger generations. Through many studies, it has been found that drivers ed drastically lowers the rate of teen drivers dying in car crashes. Car crashes are almost inevitable, but with the help of drivers education classes, the number of fatal crashes will lower significantly. There are many other steps that could be taken but most of them are covered by drivers ed, one of which is stressing the risks of driving under the influence. Many schools try to highlight the deadly effects of driving while high or drunk but many students take it as a joke. When the risks are shown in the drivers ed courses, students take it more seriously. If schools also stress the risks, the number of car crash related deaths would lower exponentially.

I’ve never been in a car accident while driving but when I was in middle school my father and I got in a minor accident while we were on our way home. It snowed that week so the roads were slightly slippery. We stopped at a stop sign after a turn and suddenly the car two cars behind us crashed into the car right behind us which caused the car behind us crash into our car. Our car and the other outside only had a few minor scratches but the car in the middle had a slight dent at the back. The good thing is that nobody was injured. Thankfully, everyone in the crash knew what to do. My dad called the police while the lady who owned the outside car inspected all three cars to see what damage happened. She explained that her breaks stopped working as she was going around the corner which caused her to crash into the car in front of her. That accident could have been a lot worse if someone else was caught into it and didn’t know what was happening.

Taking drivers safety courses and paying attention to what is being taught can help me and other new drivers become better drivers and stay safe on the roads. By using the information that is taught, like what to do when you get into an accident, what road signs mean and why you shouldn’t drive under the influence, new drivers can avoid fatal car accidents and keep the roads safer. Drivers saftey courses will help take steps towards the roads being safer. These courses, if required, will successfully lower the rate of fatal car crashes and will make the roads much safer than they are now which will not only benefit current generations, but future generations as well.