America’s Vital Need for Road Safety

Driver’s Education is an essential tool that makes the roads safer for everyone. Motor vehicles are incredibly powerful machines that can act as invaluable tools to navigate life. However, they are also incredibly dangerous and need to be handled with immense care and prior training. Motor vehicle operation is the most dangerous thing we do on a daily basis and it is essential that people who are new to driving learn how to safely and properly control an automobile.

Behind the wheel training is particularly important for the driver to experience the significance of safe and aware driving. If a student driver’s only experience is driving with an older family member or parent, that parent might have some dangerous or risky opinions related to driving safety. There isn’t really any way to have accountability for what the student driver is learning without a well-run driver’s education program. Behind the wheel driving instruction with a trained, ratified professional instructor is the best way to learn safe and thorough driving skills. However, I also believe that driver education can still be improved. I think there should be an additional written test after passing the driving portion, with less memorization of rules and distances and more a reminder of defensive driving strategies and the importance of not being distracted. That way, before the new driver has full freedom to drive, they must go through a defensive driving course

I believe that a large amount of driving-related deaths can be prevented by providing new drivers with a variety of different behind the wheel experiences. Learning different parking scenarios, highway driving, school zone driving, driving during rush hour, etc. all make for a better driver. Car accidents are the most frequent cause of death among young people. I personally have never been in a car accident, but I have seen friends and family members get in accidents. I have a friend who always made me feel unsafe in their car because they drove too close to other cars, made reckless turns, and drove too fast. This friend eventually ended up getting in three wrecks. Thankfully, they were unharmed, but this made me want to improve my safe driving skills much more and always pay close attention to the road and my surroundings. When someone I know is driving irresponsibly or while distracted, I always remind them to focus their attention on the road. Being an attentive driver is essential for safety, and this fact should be emphasized in all driver’s education programs.

The first step to becoming a safer driver is to never depend on other drivers to follow the rules. If you drive with the mindset that anyone could swerve into your lane at any moment, you will become so much more aware of your surroundings and more focused on preserving the safety of yourself and others. Another extremely important step in safe driving is to always have an “escape route”; a path you can move into in case another driver goes out of control and might become a danger to you. Another step in safe driving is making sure that others are being as safe as possible. A way to help others become safer on the road is to encourage your friends to practice safe driving habits, even if it isn’t considered “cool.” Often, teenagers can become overconfident in their driving abilities and make incredibly risky decisions that often end in crashes and death. These include, but are not limited to: texting while driving, driving while intoxicated, driving with rowdy passengers, and driving at high speeds. Cars can be safe havens for teenagers, for talking, spending time together, and traveling, which often makes cars feel like they are little homes where anything goes. This can be fun, and gives kids still living with their families a sense of freedom they can’t get at home or school. However, a car is a two-ton box of metal capable of hurtling down the road at incredibly dangerous speeds. Encouraging peers to drive safely, and calling them out when they are being unsafe makes the roads safer for everyone.

In conclusion, driving is a vital and inescapable part of our daily lives and needs to be treated with the gravity and importance that it demands. Automobile related deaths are some of the most preventable when the proper precautions are taken. The importance of educating drivers on safe skills and tactics is incredibly important and doing so effectively will dramatically decrease car-related deaths.