Driving Awareness

When it comes to driving, the idea always scared me before I learned. Mainly because of all the accidents you would hear about on the news, or accidents you would see when driving by. I was always scared, being that kid walking to school along a busy street with no sidewalk. Knowing about those fears I would imagine that I’m not the only one feeling that way. Now that I am able to drive I’m always cautious of the drivers around me and especially the pedestrians walking along the road. I like to think that I am a safe, very safe driver. I find it important to be constantly aware of your surroundings when driving and I hope that’s how others view it as well.

Driver’s education is vital when it comes to new drivers, especially when learning at a young age. I think everyone should take a driver education course before learning to drive no matter what their age is. If everyone took some sort of general course before driving it would well educate people on how to drive safely and what to look out for. Which would lead to less deaths. As long as it is enforced that everyone pass a driver’s education course then the better off we would be as a society. We wouldn’t have to be scared of people driving as much if we knew that everyone has been educated on it before.

To reduce the number of deaths when it comes to driving we could work towards a regular reminder of the rules of the road. I would suggest that every 10 years or so we would retake a drivers education course to remind us of the importance of the rules. Just as a minor check up. Or we could make it much harder to get a drivers license, that’s what they have done in other countries even if it’s not for the same reason. Some countries make the age to get a drivers license much higher than what it is here in the US. That would make it so that we wouldn’t have to worry about teen drivers causing accidents related to them driving. Since there is a much higher risk of teens driving that would help reduce a lot of deaths related to driving. However these are merely suggestions that come to mind that most need to be agreed upon by many people.

I have been in somewhat of a car accident, which was nothing too serious. I broke the lens of one of my front headlights and dented the side of the car where the headlight is. I broke it by trying to pull out of a spot on the side of the road and my headlight hit the corner of the bumper of the truck parked in front of me. It was a simple and slightly stupid mistake on my part by not being entirely aware of the space I had and how big my car was when trying to turn out. There was barely a dent on the other car’s metal bumper so it wasnt that big of a deal for them. The owner of the other car saw it happened so we talked it out and luckily we’re not upset with me. I was balling of course though even if it was barely something to be crying about. I was so upset with the fact that I broke a part of my car and that I really tried to pull out of that spot without backing up. It was an easy mistake, I was tired on my way home and just had horrible judgment at the moment. At least it’s an experience that I have had and I am a lot more careful when in close proximity to other cars.

For me to be a safer driver I can work towards being more aware of my proximity to other cars. I am not worried about my proximity to pedestrians because I always give them a lot of attention and space when driving by. I am just more worried about other cars. For others to be safer on the road I would suggest they pay more attention to their surroundings of what’s going on around them, know the proximity of their car and to understand the rules of the road. Also don’t drive if they haven’t had some sort of driver’s ed experience. No one should have to be stressed out when driving so we should all reassure each other that we all know the proper rules and skills to drive.