The Importance of Driver Education

The Importance of Driver Education

By: Ailani Williams

As teenagers and young adults reach that time of getting permits and drivers licenses, most cannot wait to get behind the wheel and start driving. They might feel annoyed at their parent’s hesitation to give them such a privilege, but I think that they are justified in their worries. According to the Association For Safe International Road Travel, every year approximately 1.35 million people die in road crashes around the world and more than 38, 000 people die every year from road crashed in the United States. With this knowledge it is safe to say that safe driving in driver education is important for everyone alike who is or will be on the road. Having driver education is beneficial to the world as it reduces death and/or injury to pedestrians as well as people who are behind the wheel.

There are many reasons as to why a car crash would occur and most reasons are always preventable. In driver education, one is always taught about the dangers of being on the road and how to become a responsible driver so that you can protect yourselves and others. Even though people pass the test to get their license or permit, it still seems that they can be careless and put other people’s lives in danger as they forget what they were taught in drivers’ education. Statistics show that speeding, drunk driving, distractions, cell phones, weather, red light violations, and driver fatigue are the seven leading causes for accidents on the road. This is unfortunate as with what I have stated before, most of these are preventable.

With reading this information you might be wondering how driver education is so important if people keep dying on the road. To that my answer is simple; driver education is of the outmost importance when it comes to road safety, if we did not have it then people would not know what to do at traffic lights, stop signs, four way stops, U-turns, speed limits, etc. leaving us desperate to find an answer to our new problem. With people having gone through driver education and are still reckless on the road I propose a solution that might help with that problem and reduce the number of deaths and accidents that occur. All types of licenses must be renewed at some point in life, even though they must be renewed usually they are in different ways. For a cosmetologist, they must renew their license every 2 years by going through 4 hours of continuing education so that TDLR knows that the cosmetologist is polished up on their skills. If we were to do the same for a driver’s license, I believe that it will help with the problem of car accidents. Having a driver go through drivers’ education again to renew their license could be beneficial as it will inform the driver once more on how safety should be a driver’s top priority.

Within my life I have unfortunately had a few experiences of being in car accidents as most of my family are irresponsible drivers. The first car accident I was ever in was when I was around 7 years old, and my mother was looking at another car instead of the road while we were on the highway. Her mistake had led us to crashing into another car that had slowed down in front of us which in turn ruined our car and injured my mother, by brother, and i. the second car accident I was in had been at my stepmothers’ expense as she had fallen asleep at the wheel on the highway and ended up swerving into another person’s lane eventually causing a car crash. The last car crash that I was in had happened due to weather problems when the roads had frozen over, and 18 wheelers had crashed into ongoing traffic causing a chain reaction.

All the incidents that I had described were terrifying as they could have led to possible death for my family and I or the other drivers in their car. As I have said previously, most of my family are not safe drivers and due to their unsafe ways. Their actions have led me to only drive once I am thoroughly educated on the matter and explain to my family how their driving can affect others and how they need to become more of a defensive driver on the road rather than an aggressive one. I would like for them to take my worries and education to heart and understand that respect the safety of my family and others.

To become a better and safer driver, I believe that one needs to realize and take into consideration how their actions have consequences. For this reason, I have chosen to not acquire my driver’s license until I feel that I am more mature and responsible to drive alongside others on the roads of the world so that I can provide a safer environment for people. I strongly believe that the only way to solve the problem of deaths on the road is for people to take driver education and safety seriously instead of seeing it as just a privilege. As I have been told many times; a car is a weapon, and the only way to be safe with that weapon is if you understand and respect it around yourself and others. If people were to take that statement to heart, I believe that our roads could become safer places.