Driving Safely Saves Lives

Driver education is a very important, and personal, topic to my family. Because my mom’s cousin and grandmother were killed in car accidents, good driving skills are prioritized and strongly encouraged in my family. My mom’s cousin was 18 years old when she swerved to miss an animal on the road, which caused her to hit a tree. My mom’s grandmother was killed by a driver who failed to stop at a red light. That accident also injured my mom’s grandfather severely. We have experienced first-hand the pain that is caused when a family member is killed in a car accident. The experience is scarring and should not happen to anyone. I feel that with more driver education, fewer accidents will happen and people will not have to go through the tragedies that my family went through.

Many driving deaths can be prevented by driver education and, as a result, driver education should be a top priority for all people, but especially teenagers. Some teens think that driving is something fun and spontaneous to do and they forget that when you drive, you are operating a large, heavy vehicle that could injure someone in only a split second of carelessness. Driver education causes you to stop and think about the realities of driving, both the benefits and the potential for harm. If teen drivers are educated on the dangers of reckless and distracted driving, many of them will take the instruction to heart and will drive differently than if they had not received driver education. One important part of driver education is instructing people not to drive after consuming alcohol or drugs. Intoxicated driving is a major cause of car accidents. While underage drivers should not be consuming alcohol or drugs, some of them still do so. Hearing the risks of driving while intoxicated during driver education could help reinforce to teens that they should abstain, at least when they are planning to drive.

Driver education helps you take steps to become a safer driver and will certainly help reduce the number of deaths related to driving. These steps include driving defensively, focusing on the road and not on objects in your car (including cell phones), and following all of the rules of the road (including wearing your seat belt and not speeding or running red lights or stop signs). Teens should be made to read and watch stories about other teens who have been injured or killed in car accidents. For example, I know about a teenager who was texting her mom while driving, hit a dump truck and was killed. I also was told about a young woman who reached down to get something out of her purse while she was driving and swerved to miss a car when she looked up. Her car hit a railing and flipped. Both of these accidents could have been easily avoided if the drivers had been better educated.

Personally, I have witnessed friends driving irresponsibly and it has made me very nervous. Two of my high school friends were recently hospitalized after a car accident that one of them caused by driving badly. No one was killed in the accident, but it caused a great deal of stress and worry for my friends’ parents, as well as expense to fix the car that was damaged. Listening to my friends talk about the accident made me realize that I don’t want to be involved in an accident myself and this has helped me to focus on being a safer driver.

Another benefit of driver education can be financial. Some insurance companies give you a discount in your insurance premium for taking a driver education class. This was important to me because I help my parents pay a portion of my monthly auto insurance premium.

As a teen, I prefer to drive myself or to drive with an adult, rather than be in the car with teen drivers who are not always focused on the road. I always encourage my friends to drive safely and when I am in the car with other people, I do my best not to distract them. I also offer to text for them, so that they can keep their eyes on the road. In addition, I talk to my younger brother about being a safe driver. I know that teen boys are typically more likely to be involved in a car accident than teen girls, so I want to make sure that my brother is conscious of the risks of driving. I also model good driving habits when my brother is in the car with me.