Safe Driving

In
New York State you can get your learner’s permit when you turn 16 and
are eligible to take your road test six months later.  Once you
pass your road test you get a provisional license which allows you to
drive to and from work or school and only during certain hours until
you turn 17.  The examiners are very strict during these tests,
for good reason, and most teens do not pass their road test the first
time. I was one of the lucky ones who did pass my first time. The
one major requirement to get your full license at 17 as opposed to 18
is that you need to take a school based drivers ed course.  

Drivers
education is a very important part of learning to drive and becoming
an adult.  New drivers are often clueless of what to expect when
they get on the road. They think just because they sat in the
passenger seat of their parent’s cars for the past few years they
know everything there is to know about driving.  FALSE!!!
Things like knowing how slippery a wet road is, or how you need to
slow down when making a turn may seem like common sense but when a
new driver gets behind the wheel all common sense goes out the
window. Foul weather is one of the major causes of bad car accidents
leading to death.  It is so important to learn how to control
your car in all kinds of weather. Being drilled by the drivers
education teacher may seem boring at times, but the more you hear it
the more it becomes second nature when you are behind the wheel.

Distracted
driving is the leading cause of car accidents.  This is always a
big topic in drivers ed classes. According to the National
Safety Council (NSC), 90% of car crashes occur because of human
error.  According to the NSC, 2,841 people died in 2018 as a
result of distracted driving. We as student drivers need to be aware
of this and use our knowledge to not only save ourselves but everyone
else on the road.

Unfortunately,
I have been in my share of car accidents.  Luckly, none of them
were ever serious or life threatening.  One time I was on my way
home from a friend’s Sweet Sixteen when this woman who was texting
while driving hit our car. I was with my friend, his mom, sister and
little brother.  My friend’s mom handled the situation
perfectly. We waited for the police and eventually got home safe.
We were lucky that it wasn’t worse.

 There
are so many steps we can take to become safer drivers on the road and
help others to do the same.  To begin with, we need to educate
the public on distracted driving, especially the dangers of texting
while driving.  With the statistics stated above, if we can
reduce distracted driving by even 50% we can save close to 1500 lives
per year.