The Importance of Safe Driving and Driver Education

When I turned sixteen, I was so excited to finally be able to get my learning permit so I could start driving. I saw driving as a symbol of freedom and the first step towards becoming an adult. My parents had just bought me a car and I was so ready to just get out there. I was sick of not being able to go out with my friends because I didn’t have a ride and constantly being late to dance because I had to wait for my parents to get off work to drive me there. While I was so excited, I was kind of annoyed at the same time. In my home state of Kentucky, you can’t get a permit until you turn sixteen, and you can’t drive on your own for six months after that. You then have to wait another six months before getting an unrestricted license, which allows you to have more than one non-family member in the car with you. All of my friends from out of state had already been driving for a whole year, and they were all getting their full license. I felt like I was behind. To make matters worse, I had to take a boring two-day class on safe driving. That class turned out to be much more important than I thought.

I arrived at the school library for the class in a bad mood. I was not looking forward to spending four hours with a bunch of people I didn’t really know after school hours. I realized it was serious though when a state trooper walked in. I was expecting the class to be taught by staff from the school. I definitely wasn’t expecting the tall, buff trooper to walk in. My boredom quickly shifted to disturbance when he started showing us pictures of car accident victims. They left a sick feeling in my stomach and made me a little nervous to be driving. I knew of course that people died in car accidents all the time, but I hadn’t realized how gruesome their deaths were. While the class was eye-opening, I still felt pretty decent about driving. I wasn’t going to speed, and I definitely wasn’t going to drive drunk. I also knew to avoid driving when and where drunk drivers were common, so it wasn’t likely that would ever happen to me. Unfortunately, I was reminded all too soon how wrong that thinking was.

A couple of months later, in early February, there was heavy rain that came through. I was driving to dance with my dad in the passenger seat when it hit. I couldn’t even see five feet in front of me and I had to pull over and let my dad drive the rest of the way. That night, when I got home, my mom was waiting for me with bad news. The school had sent out an email that we had lost a student in a car accident. What scared me most was that they didn’t give a name. It could have been one of my friends for all I knew. When I got to school the next morning, I found out who it was. He was the star of the baseball team, and his girlfriend was a cheerleader. I had seen him in the lobby about to walk out to his car after school that day. It turns out, he hydroplaned going around a curve and overcorrected. I was shocked. I never expected the guy that sat in the row next to me in my freshman Spanish class would die so suddenly and brutally. It showed me how fragile life is, and how important safe driving is. It showed me that it wasn’t just people who speed or drove drunk that died in car accidents, but normal people just doing what they thought was best. From that moment forward, I vowed I would always take safe driving seriously.

My perspective on driving changed so much in just a few short months. When I first started driving, I wasn’t nearly serious enough about the dangers of the road. By taking the safe driving class, my eyes were opened to how ugly driving can get, and when my classmate died, I realized that accidents didn’t just happen to those who speed or drove drunk. In the two years since I’ve been driving, I’ve realized how important driver education is, and how there isn’t nearly enough of it. Had driver education been more intense and hands-on, maybe my classmate would have known not to overcorrect that night and would still be alive. Thorough driving education that teaches of the dangers of not just distractions and drinking, but also how to react to weather, other drivers, and anything else that could happen on the road could save thousands of lives every year. It is important that every driver knows what to do before they get on the road. Every time you get behind the wheel, you are taking your life into your own hands, so it’s important that every driver is properly educated and knows the importance of safe driving.