Driver Education, it only takes one second

Driving is something that every teenager dreams about. As soon as they hit sixteen years old, they think they are ready to be “free” and go wherever they please. The sad truth is that most teens are not ready to drive, and neither are adults. Car accidents are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. How can we prevent this? Driver education is something that can reduce the risk of car accidents. Driver education can teach new or old drivers the safe way to operate a motor vehicle. If you think about it, more than 90 people die in a car accident everyday. This is because of the amount of education and skills that most drivers do not have. Accidents that involve a vehicle can be caused by many different factors. Reckless driving, DUIs, and distractions are all components that increase the risk of a car accident. There is no way to completely stop the risk for incidents. However, reducing them is the best option that we have right now. Getting people aware of the risks and responsibilities of getting behind the wheel should be the first priority. With more people knowledgeable about the factors to safe driving, deaths can be avoided. Driver education plays a very important role in reducing car incidents. Driver education takes time to teach people the right way to drive and to physically show how to avoid or get out of situations that could lead to be life threatening. Of course, people know that accidents happen, but they don’t care to look beyond the way they or others are driving and try to fix it. I believe driver education is a way to represent the good and bad side of driving. People are always focused on the good side of driving like being able to go places and doing what they want. However, nobody pays attention to the horrific side of things. How easy it is for a life to be taken because of a simple mistake. I feel like driver education can give people a glimpse of what can happen when you read one text message or you only have one beer. Maybe you are driving safely but someone else isn’t. It only takes a second for everything in someone’s life to change. Driver education can also take many forms. Whether its physical driving lessons or classroom work, whatever gets a person to drive safer is the goal. Some places like to do challenges for teen drivers to test and teach their reaction times and driving skills. Other places do programs to show how one’s actions can affect others. The internet is also a great place to do research and help yourself to become a better person on the road. This only works if everyone puts in some form of effort to make the roads safer. Although you might put in the work, other people might not. Sometimes it takes a terrible accident to finally make someone understand how dangerous uneducated driving really is. Personally, I have never been in a car accident. I have been close to one, but thanks to my dad’s skills it was avoided. However, I have had close family members be victims of reckless driving. My mother was in an accident that caused her to have PTSD whenever someone else drives. Recently another family member of mine was just killed in an accident that wasn’t his fault. All because someone else was being reckless, speeding and under the influence. My cousin’s home is now heaven and his family suffers everyday without him being here. It took these accidents for people to realize the cause of their actions. Some might not even change, but if one person drives safer everyday, we are closer to a goal of safer roads. Although, there is only so much one person can do, it takes a second person or a third to really make the difference. I want to try my best everyday to make sure I drive safely and I want to be able to teach others what is truly means to drive safely. No one deserves the phone call that their significant other, parent, or child has been in a accident. We want to be able to see them pull into the driveway safely and not have to worry that they won’t make it home. You don’t have to be tense in the driver seat or feel like you can’t drive. Just know your surroundings, the risks, and causes of what goes on when you get behind that wheel. That is driver education and that is how we make safe drivers.