The Repercussions of an Uneducated Driver

One of the most shocking and tragic ways to lose someone is to a car accident. In America, most people drive or are passengers in a vehicle every single day. When we head out to start the day, most of us are not considering that we could die on the road. The fact of the matter is I am more likely to die on my daily ten minute ride to work than I am if I were to join the military. If the general population had more strictly enforced driving education courses, the number of deaths by car accident would be greatly reduced. People must be taught that they are operating a weapon every time they get behind the wheel.

Unfortunately, I have yet to meet someone who has not had their life impacted by a car wreck. I have been in two myself, both due to a serious lack of education. The first crash I was in happened because my friend who was driving did not know what to do when hydroplaning and ran into the car in front of her; something that could have been fatal if we had been going at higher speeds. In Arizona we are taught how to handle this situation as part of our written permit test, but many people just pay to take the test over and over until they pass, not really retaining any knowledge. There is even a private testing location in my town where you can essentially just buy your driver’s license with very minimal testing.

In another incident my sister was driving through a construction zone. The speeds were reduced, as it was a highly trafficked area, so the cars driving in the opposite direction had come to a pretty sudden halt. In an attempt to avoid rear-ending the car in front of him, one man pulled directly into oncoming traffic and hit my sister’s vehicle head on. The most disturbing issue with this story is that the driver was in a tow truck – his literal profession was driving! Yet despite lots of training and education (I assume), he chose to nearly kill my sister rather than pull into the dirt on the right. I remember feeling incredulous, as everyone in the States is taught to always pull right for any sort of stop.

One solution to accidents like these is including driving courses in high schools everywhere. Being taught to drive for a full year would better instill all of the traffic laws that drivers need to stay safe. If each school could have one or two cars for practice, that would guarantee that every student gets the opportunity of physically driving a car before taking their permit test. It would also ensure a professional teacher rather than a parent or older sibling, from whom most drivers learn. Students could receive a certificate of completion at the end of the year that would then be presented before ever taking their license test.

Another way to maintain safe driving would be requiring drivers to be re-tested on their knowledge more often than after sixty years, perhaps once every ten years. Many friends my age have already forgotten important aspects of the permit test that we all took within the last six years. Also, it would be beneficial for the first test to be a bit more comprehensive. If people had to really spend time studying and memorizing traffic regulations, they would be safer drivers. I can recall random facts about calculating statistics just because I studied the subject for multiple months before testing on it. Increasing the education of all drivers would certainly reduce the number of deaths from car accidents. Some accidents are unavoidable, but with more easily recalled knowledge when in an emergency situation, people would be better equipped to handle them in an injury-reducing manner. For example, my friend may not have been able to stop her car from hydroplaning, but she certainly could have put all of her passengers in a safer situation if she knew how to handle the situation.

Finally, the option to retake tests repeatedly within the same week and to pay for your license should be completely illegal. It is unfortunate but true that if people are not forced to learn properly, not everyone will. There should not be an easy way out of learning something so important as operating a vehicle. I believe that in driver’s education classes the first thing taught should be that a vehicle is a weapon. There were nearly two times as many deaths by car accidents than gunshots in 2020. Many people do not really become careful about driving until they lose someone in a car accident or endure one themselves. If we were serious about the implementations of operating a car prior to actually doing it, people would be more cautious. These changes need to happen soon so that thousands of lives can be saved.