If SpongeBob Can Do It So Can We

One of the most important, or in my opinion, courses that is offered and honestly, should be required is driver’s education. Driver’s education is important because it gives students the opportunity to learn through experience rather than just watching or hearing about driving. Sometimes driver’s education courses are the only real driving experiences teenagers get before they are “thrown to the wolves” so to speak, meaning they get no driving experience or lessons before they are given a license and expected to know the rules and how to drive properly. In my personal experience, when taking my driver’s education course, one of my co-driver’s had never even been behind the wheel of a car other than to take their driver’s test. To say that I was terrified would be an understate. I wasn’t even sure by the end of their first turn in the parking lot, how they were able to obtain their license in the first place.

I feel like a driver’s education course, or some type of defensive driving course should be required before anyone can obtain their driver’s license. Just taking a written test and driving around one block doesn’t really seem like a safe or accurate was to access someone’s ability to maintain proper control of a motor vehicle. Unfortunately, most driver’s education courses are only offered to those who have already received their driver’s license. While this does help those individuals improve their driving skills, I feel it is more important for people to learn some of those skills and practice them prior to getting out on the highway.

If SpongeBob SquarePants had to take a driver’s education course to obtain his license, why don’t people have to take one? Instead, they are given a short-written test where most of the answers are obvious, and the rest can be answered with an educated guess by eliminating all but two answers from the start. Most driver’s tests (the driving portion) involve backing out of a space, driving around one block where you are required to make at least one left turn, and pulling back into a parking space. While there are other cars around because it is completed on a highway, it doesn’t seem like that would be an adequate display of a person’s driving skills for another individual to be able to determine and sign off on someone else’s ability to operate a motor vehicle safely. People could start out in a closed course with no other vehicles where they can learn the basic rules of driving and practice some simple parking as well as maintaining control and staying in their lane, understanding what the turn lane is and what it is for before venturing out on the highways with other drivers. Another skill that I feel all who want to drive should have to complete during a course is learning how to properly merge with oncoming traffic. I have seen numerous close calls and passed accident scenes where people either didn’t accelerate enough to merge with traffic, or the merged into someone else because they weren’t sure where their merge lane ended or how to properly swap lanes on a multi-lane interstate/expressway.

Driving irresponsibly happens daily all over the world and in various ways. Texting and driving is probably the most common way that people drive irresponsibly. Learning to put your phone away while you are in a motor vehicle is probably one of the smartest things you can do. Even with the voice to text and all the hands-free devices there are currently there are still thousands of accidents caused by texting and driving. If more people would just put the phone down, and concentrate on the task at hand, more people would make it home to their families. The best thing that I and everyone else can do is just to be an attentive driver and to be cautious. Pay attention and be aware of your surroundings when you are operating a motor vehicle can save so many lives.

Driving is probably one of the most dangerous things that people do on a regular basis and more than likely do it without even considering that fact. I know there have been times I’ve gotten to my destination and wondered how I managed to even get there because I don’t remember anything about the trip, almost as if I were on autopilot. Not because I was doing anything that would put others or myself at risk of being harmed, but simply because my mind was in a hundred different places thinking about school, work, my future, food, or whatever it may have been that was plaguing my brain while I was driving. I’m certain that all of us are guilty of this and that may be a little harder to prevent, but things like putting the phone away, not messing with the radio, and just being aware of our surroundings in general could alleviate a multitude of traffic accidents. Allowing what others do on the road to make you so overwhelmingly angry that it becomes unsafe for yourself, and others should not be a thing. I’ve seen more and more recently in the news about shots being fired or people being killed because of road rage. Nothing that person did or that you did should lead to acts of violence that could hurt or kill people. They cut you off or you accidently swerve a little…big deal. You are both ok and no actual accident occurring should not lead to guns being drawn, pit maneuvers, or initial harm or death coming to anyone. If you can’t control your temper over something that small, then you probably don’t need to be on the roads in the first place. People are human and make mistakes. You make mistakes just like the next person and that mistake should not lead to the things that it has recently. Be better, be forgiving.

Driver’s education courses that are offered prior to obtaining a license to learn basic driving skills, defensive driving refresher courses at a certain age, and maybe even some anger management classes would be a great benefit to essentially every driver on the road today.