Importance of Driver Education

From the first time I saw how my parents drove me around at a young age to finally getting the freedom to drive myself around, I realized the importance of driver safety for not only those who I care about but also strangers driving beside me. Being a younger child, I never understood the importance of driving safely, instead, I ended up complaining to my parents “Why is it taking so long?!”. Little did I know, my parents never rushed to get from one place to another, instead they were more focused to get to a place in one piece. As the years went on, I finally started to realize the importance of driver safety although I was not old enough to drive yet. Leading up to the first time I could drive behind the wheel during high school, I had seen several accidents whether it was small fender benders to life-threatening crashes. I would wonder why this kind of accident would ever happen. Sometimes it is a human error other times it is because of a car malfunction or weather. Regardless, accidents happen and before you know it, you can be in an accident.

Coming from personal experience as I had finally gotten my license, I too had gotten into an accident. The accident was not severe, but I had been T-boned by someone who had run their stop sign in a four-way intersection. The moment it happened, I did not know what had happened, but after the adrenaline had lessened, I finally realized that I had been hit and I could not have done anything about it. Luckily everyone was unharmed, but there is always the thought in the back of my head to make sure and double-check that there is no one coming without a complete stop.

Driver education is a very important idea that everyone who is a driver should know about. Driver education can start as early as the sophomore year of high school and up. Many things can be learned such as defensive driving, whether it is needed after spinning out in the weather or to avoid a collision. Driver education can not only save more lives which is the main idea, but it can also result in less repetitive arguments and counter-arguments when filing an insurance claim with your company. Remembering back in high school when I had a driver’s education, I remember being a very zoned-in student to understand the do’s and the don’ts while driving on the road. The class has benefited me in various situations since it allowed me to become a better and more aware driver.

Moving on, the steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving is to enroll in a course to allow anyone to understand the importance of being aware while driving. Another step is in the passenger seat, to watch how the driver drives to get a good understanding of the rules of the road. Overall, having common knowledge of the dos and don’ts is the main ideology that a person should know to prevent fewer deaths or collisions.

As mentioned earlier in the essay, I had been involved in an accident. To add to that idea, I can also recall the amount of shock I was in when I had been hit. I was not able to move for a good two minutes, but once the police had arrived, I managed to move the car over and get the situation settled. I have also been a victim of being in a car with people who drove irresponsibly as well. Nowadays people tend to speed whether five miles over or twenty or more miles over the speed limit. This is one of the main reasons that there are frequent accidents. Speeding is not only reckless but it has a higher chance of harming either the driver by not being able to react quickly enough to the speed. Phone usage is another common issue in today’s driving. I had seen many people driving their vehicles and sitting on their phones. There were several instances where someone would start swerving into me, and I would have to counter by doing some defensive driving by either slowing down or laying the horn on them to wake them up from their phone.

Some steps that I believe are necessary to become a more safe driver is to make sure that there are no distractions. For example, someone calling you on the phone or just having people trying to distract you in the car. These ideas can be easily maintained by myself since I focus on driving to keep everyone in the car as well as around me safe. Another idea is to refresh my mind on ideas that are important while driving such as what signs mean or improving my defensive driving. Regarding another person, I would make sure that they are focused on the road. Also warning them about speed or directions can be another good idea since phone usage while using a GPS is quite common nowadays.

To conclude, the importance of driver education is an important idea that every driver should know to create a more safe driving experience for everyone and to also decrease the statistics of the amounts of deaths that are created due to unsafe driving, or a lack of driver education. For as long as I can drive, I will make sure that I will have a great understanding of driver education, but I will also strive to make sure that anyone that I am a passenger, understands that driver education plays a key role in an everyday environment.