Reality Check

Reality
Check

Each
time I drive the route to school, my mind flashes to the fateful day
the car in front of me stopped quickly to make a last-minute turn, so
my brakes were quickly applied as well. Suddenly, the squealing of
brakes and what can only be described as a “boom” caused me to
instinctively cover my head and brace myself. My compact Kia was
thrust forward into incoming traffic in a way that can only be
described as miraculous as the cars on the other side of the road
stopped before hitting me head-on. It turns out I was the first in
line of a four-car pileup, and the driver charged had been looking
down on their phone, unable to stop in time. Eight people walked away
from the accident unscathed but, as we all know, that is not always
the case.

Although I have been born and raised in North Carolina where Driver’s
Education classes are mandatory, Nebraska is a state in which
students can choose whether or not to participate in the training.
Because of this choice, this became a prime testing group, and
researchers at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln recently
released the results of an exhaustive survey of their state’s teen
drivers. Duane Shell and Ian Newman, of the Nebraska Prevention
Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse at UNL, reviewed the driving
records of 151,800 Nebraska teen drivers who obtained their
provisional licenses between 2003 and 2010. Of those studied, about
53% had taken a state-approved drivers ed course; the rest chose
the option of completing 50 hours of supervised driving with a parent
or guardian. The results were clear: the drivers who had taken a
drivers ed course were involved in fewer crashes: 11.1% of the
drivers ed group, as opposed to 12.9% of those who hadn’t taken
a course, had been involved in a crash. The study also showed that
those who had taken a drivers ed course were considerably less
likely to get a moving violation ticket. 10.4% of those who had taken
a course had received a ticket, compared to 18.3% of those who had
not.¹
Clearly, mandatory and ample access to Drivers ed classes
is a boon toward allowing teens the opportunity to not only drive
independently, but also navigate respectfully, carefully, and safely.

Additionally,
according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 10%
of fatal crashes and 15% of injury crashes in 2015 were
distraction-affected and, in fact, cell phone users are 5.36 times
more likely to get into an accident than undistracted drivers. The
USDOT has also found that text messaging increases the risk of crash
or near-crash by 23 times, and a person’s poor decision to send or
read a text message while behind the wheel, takes the eyes off the
road for about 5 seconds, long enough to cover a football field while
driving at 55 mph.²
It is imperative these sobering facts are clearly imprinted in the
minds of new drivers so that they can understand the possible dire
consequences which arise from driving in a distracted manner.

As
I am now driving not only myself to school but also my younger
brother, the steps I have taken to be even more responsible a driver
include: handing him my cell phone for safe keeping once we both are
in the car, keeping the radio off or at a very low volume while we
drive together, and helping him to be a future safe driver by
modeling proper distance-keeping, and speed limit obedience. The
futures of America’s teenage drivers are much too promising to
gamble on a momentary lack of reason and/or consideration of their
and the lives of others.