Perfect Score

Driver education is extremely important in reducing the number of driving-related injuries and deaths. As someone who attended Driver’s-Ed before taking my driving test, I can say that it helped me become a more skilled and confident driver. I was even able to get a perfect score on my road test. I have many friends and acquaintances who did not take Driver’s-Ed and instead learned to drive only from their parents. Parents are not perfect drivers themselves and can often forget to teach certain rules of the road to their children, which can lead to accidents that would’ve been avoided otherwise.

I think requiring some type of Driver’s-Education for all who seek to receive a driver’s license, whether it be state-run or private driving lessons (I’ve attended both and they are both very helpful,) would help greatly reduce the number of injuries and deaths caused by driving. This would help all drivers be on the same page in terms of the driving rules before being allowed to drive on their own.

I’ve never personally been in a car accident but my mom and sister have been. They got rear-ended as my mom was about to turn into my neighborhood. The woman who hit them didn’t hit her breaks and was most likely on her phone or distracted in some way. Luckily no one was seriously injured, but my mom’s car was totaled. Our family had to lose a car we loved because of a stranger’s distracted driving, and we could’ve lost much more than just our car.

Despite the perfect score I received on my road test, I’m nowhere near a perfect driver. Since getting my license and buying my own car, I’ve adopted plenty of habits that are not ideal. If a song comes on that I don’t like, I often change the music on my phone. Sometimes I even text while driving. I also have a habit of turning to talk to my friends while driving. My most common distracted driving habit is playing my music very loud, to the point where I can’t hear other vehicles around me. I hope that by examining my distracted driving habits and creating a specific plan to end those habits, I can become a better and safer driver.

To stop myself from changing music on my phone while I’m driving, I’ll stop putting my music on shuffle. Instead, I’ll spend a few seconds queueing up the songs I want to listen to before I start to drive, so I don’t have to deal with songs I don’t want to listen to. To make sure I don’t text while driving I will change my phone settings to turn on do not disturb mode while driving. This will make it so I don’t even see texts on my phone until I reach my destination, so I won’t be tempted to answer while driving.

Instead of turning to talk to my friends while they’re driving, I’ll wait to continue the conversation once we’ve reached our destination. If I absolutely must continue the conversation at that moment, I will keep my eyes on the road at all times and be sure to not lose my focus. I will also make a conscious effort not to distract my friends when they are driving and I am a passenger. Keeping your eyes on the road is arguably the most important rule of driving, so it would be stupid for me to not attempt to eliminate any driving habits that don’t involve me giving my full attention to the road ahead.

My most common distracted driving habit also happens to be the easiest habit to end. I will simply stop playing my music so loud that I can’t hear the vehicles around me. It’s important to be able to hear other vehicles because other cars may honk to alert something such as a changed traffic signal, a potential danger ahead, or if we are about to collide with each other. Other sounds are also important to listen for while driving such as train whistles, emergency-vehicle sirens, and braking of vehicles. It’s also important to listen for anything that may sound out of the ordinary in my car if there’s something wrong with my car.

Distracted driving habits are very easy to adopt, but also very easy to eliminate. By following the simple steps I’ve outlined above, I will not only be keeping myself safe, but keeping the others around me safe. If all young drivers could pinpoint and eliminate their distracted driving habits like me, many lives could be saved. Driver education helps young drivers realize which driving habits are good and which ones are bad, so they have the tools to end bad driving habits. This is what makes driver education so important for all drivers.