The Importance of Driving Safely

Driver’s Education is frequently depicted as an excruciatingly boring program for student drivers. The common consensus among many teens today is that it’s useless to spend hours learning the rules of the road when students feel that they already know the essentials of driving. However, multiple studies have shown the benefits of taking drivers education. Drivers that have been through a structured drivers education program are much less likely to receive a traffic ticket or to be involved in a minor accident. Most critically, graduates of drivers education courses are less likely to be involved in a fatal accident. Because driver’s education teaches new drivers safety rules and traffic laws, lives have been saved. By ensuring that new drivers are aware of traffic laws and the risks of driving, the number of deaths on the road can be drastically reduced.

One of the most important ways to reduce the number of driving fatalities is promoting awareness of risky behaviors that cause vehicle related deaths. Ensuring that more students take a driver’s education course would be an effective way to accomplish this. Tragically, many accidents are entirely preventable. Drivers are either not informed of the dangers of their behavior at the wheel, or they simply do not believe that the rules apply to them. For example, most drivers know, in theory, that you should never be distracted while driving. Yet nearly every time I have been in a car with a peer, I’ve witnessed them pick up their phones for some trivial purpose, such as answering a text or changing the music. Are these things that are really worth the lives of others and yourself? I strongly believe that my peers are not bad people or that they are entirely selfish. They, like many drivers, believe that they will never be involved in a fatal accident, as they are convinced that they are the exception to the rules. By requiring or highly encouraging driver’s education for new drivers, we can ensure that they are aware of these risks and behavior to avoid at all costs while driving.

A few years ago, my grandmother was driving my sister and I on an interstate highway. It was a routine drive, one that she had made many times before. However, she was feeling very drowsy and neglected to take proper safety precautions by pulling over. About an hour into the drive, she fell asleep at the wheel in the midst of a high traffic area. Fortunately, she drifted off of the road instead of slamming into one of the many cars surrounding us. Regardless, it was a traumatic experience as the car rocketed off the freeway into a nearby field and nearly rolled. My grandmother, woken up by our screams of terror, was able to safely maneuver the truck back onto the road. However, I will never forget that experience as it taught me that the dangers of driving are very real. My grandmother’s drowsy driving could have killed not only the passengers in her vehicle, but she also put others on the road at risk on that day.

Again, we don’t think it can happen to us but all it takes is one split second of distraction, one drowsy afternoon or one bad decision to end someone’s life. It’s essential for everyone to be aware of what’s at stake. A routine drive can have fatal consequences is everyone on the road is not fully aware and committed to safety. Personally, I am not completely blameless. I have been strongly tempted to pick up my phone to read a text while driving, or have looked down in order to change the music playing. I, like many others, need to make a commitment to never engage in risky driving behaviors. I’m also going to make it a goal to let others know when they are driving distracted so that we can all make the roads a safer place together.