Knowledge Isn’t Always Life, But Sometimes It Can Be

Getting in a car accident as a seventeen-year-old was one of the scariest moments of my life. I got my tires caught in some slush on my way to school, and chose to slam on my breaks. And as you may have already thought, that was the wrong thing to do. Soon I found myself sliding across the busy highway with a truck heading straight at me. As I headed nose-first towards the guardrail and across traffic, I looked over the cliff I was headed for. I thought my life was over. Thankfully, the guardrail was much stronger than my mind’s perception of it, and I instead slammed up to it sideways. Did I mention it was my birthday? From that day until now, I have struggled with anxiety when I go on long distance road trips. My mind tirelessly tries to convince me that I cannot trust myself as a driver, and therefore I should not be driving.

Driver education is crucial for teaching the importance of lessons like how to drive in slushy situations. I don’t remember learning about that from my teacher, but without that guardrail, my lack of knowledge could have meant death to me that day. Continuing to encourage driving education amongst young people and those who have not yet taken driver’s education as an adult is imperative to reduce the number of deaths by driving. I can’t stress that enough: if I had understood the conditions I was driving in, I could have avoided not only the accident, but the subsequent anxiety I battle regularly now.

How does this impact my life now? In a couple ways. As it is, my job now requires me to be on the road for a large majority of the year. I am constantly in a large vehicle, sometimes pulling a trailer. I don’t always get to choose what seasons to be out on the road, either, and being from the Northwest means we likely end up on snowy passes several times throughout the winter. Because of my accident, I have not only grown in my understanding of the road conditions and how to be a safer driver, but I have also be able to conduct many conversations with friends and family who happen to be traveling with me at any given time about how we can each drive to make each other not only feel safe, but be safe.

Another area this impacts me is in my immediate family life. I do not have children now, but I hope to someday in the future. And because of my accident, it has caused me great fear of the day they one day get to hop in the driver’s seat. But that fear has also helped me value the importance of good, thorough driver’s education in their life. I hope and pray that my experience will lead them to a deeper knowledge of the responsibility of driving, and save them the trouble that I went through as a young person.