Teen Drivers: The Most Dangerous on the Road

At
fifteen most children rush straight to the DMV, walk through the
doors, and run straight back to take their permit test. When they
pass the test they feel invincible, and like they will never be hit
or in any danger. However, what they do not realize is the danger
involved with driving. Proper drivers ed courses can help
teach young drivers the rules of the road and how to better deal with
the many perilous situations that they may face on the road.

Drivers
education, classroom learning and driving with a certified
instructor, can help reduce crashes and injuries resulting from
crashes that do happen. According to the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, “ drivers ed remains a standard for
acquiring driving skills,” which shows the importance of education
influencing the way young drivers drive. This can help teach
teenagers how to safely drive because trained instructors teach them
how to correctly react to numerous situations. I can attest to this
influence. One day I was driving down the road when suddenly my car
began hydroplaning. Never having experienced this before I quickly
began to panic until I remembered what I had been taught in my
in-classroom driver’s course. I continued to steer in the direction
I wanted to head in until the car stopped skidding. Without this
prior training, it is much more likely that something tragic could
have occurred. Furthermore, driving with a certified instructor can
help prevent crashes or injuries. These people are specifically
trained in the safest and most effective ways to drive, and can, in
turn, pass this knowledge down to their students. Parents are the
main group of people that teach children how to drive, however, many
adults practice unsafe driving methods themselves. These instructors
can help prevent these methods from being passed down again.

Several
steps can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving,
such as the creation of graduated licensing systems and wearing
seatbelts. Graduated licensing systems can help prevent
driving-related deaths because it ensures that teenagers, the
riskiest group of drivers, are less likely to be placed in dangerous
systems. In fact, this system “addresses the high crash risks that
new drivers face by allowing them to get their initial driving
experience under low-risk conditions,” according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. This not only helps to prevent
crashes in teenagers but also for adults because there will be less
unsafe drivers on the road to get into crashes with. Another step
that should be taken while driving to reduce the number of deaths is
that seatbelts should be worn at all times. Seatbelts can reduce the
risk of death in a crash by 45% according to the CDC. Taking this
simple measure can help save lives. This act takes seconds and can
save one in the event of a crash. Sometimes I have friends who simply
forget to click in their seatbelts, and I am forced to remind them
how risky this behavior is. I’ve noticed that it is very easy to
keep a post-it note on the dash in order to remind oneself to put on
a seatbelt. Many of my friends have started to consistently wear
their seatbelts because of this.

In
order to become a better safer driver, we all should ensure that we
all take part in two different behaviors. The first behavior everyone
should do is to check the side-view mirrors three times, and the
blind spot twice before merging into another lane. We should also
ensure that we always use our turn signal when doing so. The second
behavior we should all do to ensure we are safe drivers is to check
the rear-view mirror every 8-10 seconds. This will give us all a
better situational understanding of where we are and what surrounds
us. Overall drivers ed can make us all safer drivers, and
graduated licensing systems and seatbelts can help prevent
driving-related deaths.