The Change We Truly Need

The only accident I have had behind a wheel was when I was thirteen years old,  in a John Deere Gator, backing out of my garage. I hit a large potted plant and practically crushed the entire ceramic bowl. At the time, I had screamed and started sobbing, because I thought I had popped a tire or run over a pet, but my dad soon assured me otherwise. He told me, “If hitting a pot is the only crash you ever experience, then I’m glad it happened.” 

I began driving in an actual car when I was a sophomore in high school. I was lucky in many ways, having been born and raised on Johns Island, South Carolina. The roads around here aren’t typically as crowded and hard to navigate as some more populated areas. Having never lived in a neighborhood, but instead down a long dirt trail off of a back road, I simply practiced driving back and forth down long straightaways with an occasional ninety-degree or three-point turn. My father directed most of the lessons, as he was a police officer and professional driving instructor for twenty-seven years. I believe that, in most ways, the only reason I’m so incredibly careful while driving and why I haven’t gotten in a wreck yet is because of his overprotective and precise instructions. He introduced defense driving to me.

Once I reached enough hours and had studied for my driving test, I took it and enrolled in driving education classes. I spent nearly eight hours in a classroom, learning about signs, traffic rules, and watching videos of wrecks to point out what went wrong and what could have gone better. I then took three individual courses with a driver in a car, which was a refreshing difference from my father. My instructor encouraged my use of defensive driving and I got to experience the highway and busier roads, where I learned to switch lanes, signal, look over my shoulder, and pay attention to the entire road instead of just one lane. After passing my driver’s test in the car, I started to drive my friends and sister anywhere they wanted to go, simply because I loved the freedom that the open road offered. During October of my first year driving, I worked at a haunted house as a scare actor nearly an hour away and taught myself to drive at nighttime, since I was often returning home later than one in the morning. I was lucky again here, as quite literally, nobody was on the road if I made a mistake or missed a turn. To this day, I still love to drive, and I haven’t been in an accident yet. 

However, although I have not been a part of one, I have witnessed many crashes in my life. Some of which, my own friends have been a part of. The first of the accidents I had been present for was with a friend’s mother when she was rear-ended. Even as a full-grown adult, she wasn’t sure whether to keep going—as there wasn’t much damage to her car—or to alert the cops. After making a few phone calls, she made the proper decision of reporting the accident and I got to experience firsthand what that kind of interaction is like. The second crash I had heard, not seen, and I remember thinking it was out of a movie. The screech of the tires, the impact, and the yelling voices were insane, as someone had stomped on their brakes and slammed into the car behind them. The sounds rattled me for the rest of the day and I was a lot more aware of how close I was following the person in front of me. The most recent accident in my memory is one that my father and I heard from the back porch. We could hear what sounded like a three-car collision from nearly two miles in the woods, and then chilling screaming. After a few minutes, we heard the police cars and firetrucks rushing to the scene, sirens blaring. Though I hadn’t seen that one either, I was in shock. I’m not sure whether someone had gone to the hospital or if anyone was fatally injured, but simply acknowledging the fear and sadness those people must have felt kept me humble about my experience and time on the road, which is always evolving since I’m still such a young driver. 

In South Carolina alone, nearly 1,000 people die from car crashes every year and 15% of those are teenager deaths. Though I was lucky to start in a small town and have space to practice, with an adult who I trusted with a lot of experience, I believe that every beginner driver would benefit from driver’s education classrooms and car lessons. Not only do the instructors teach the basics that everyone on the road should know, but they explain defensive driving in-depth and how being a good driver can encourage others to follow lead. Simply attending these classes with the full intention of listening and learning would definitely help the next generation of drivers. Requiring these experiences and not depicting them as stressful or forceful would produce safer kids behind the wheel with a passion for the road. Even adults tasked with taking yearly or biyearly tests on their driving would most likely improve the safety of the local streets and highways by tenfold. If everyone were knowledgeable of the danger cars pose when not driven with the utmost respect and awareness and willing to do better, then I wholeheartedly believe that we could all make the change we truly need: To create the roads of not only South Carolina, but the United States and perhaps even the world, safer for everyone.