Name: Olivia Oxenreider
From: Mohrsville, PENNSYLVANIA
Votes: 0
There is no light way
to discuss driver safety anymore. I will not lightly cajole you and
your friends to buckle up, I will not suggest that you put your phone
away, I will not stand and say nothing while I am bombarded day after
day with the news of those too young to die having their lives taken
in a second. I am done asking. I write today pleading with my fellow
students to consider their lives and the lives of others on the road.
While many schools do
not have drivers ed, I will first talk to those students who
do. Those who have it sit in the class and take the information as
something unimportant that doesn’t apply to you or your friends.
There is one fact you cannot argue against, and it is that a
confident driver is a safer driver. Whether you like it or not, the
confidence you have on the road increases by a considerable margin
after you take a drivers ed course. If your school does not
offer you a course on driver safety, there are still ways to receive
the same education online. There is no excuse.
No matter what, we
will never be able to bring the number of driving related deaths per
year down to zero, but if education on driving is more accessible, we
can certainly bring it down more. The most common instance that I am
informed with is hearing about someone on their phone while driving.
This is an action that I have no sympathy for other than those who
you hurt by taking part in something so unimportant. If you truly
believe that you are immune to any form of accident as a result, I
feel sorry for you. Almost every time I hear of an accident where
someone was able to walk away, it was because they were wearing a
seatbelt, and without it would have been shot through their
windshield only to be found 20 feet from their car.
Teenagers tend to
have a God complex, they believe it won’t be them or any of their
friends. When one of my brother’s best friends died in a car
accident my mother and I had to decide whether or not to wake him up
that night or wait until morning to inform him of what had happened.
This was two days after Christmas. Your parents do not deserve to
have a police officer knock on your door at 11 p.m. to tell them that
their child has perished without a chance to say goodbye.
There are so many
actions you can take to be safe, and everybody knows of them. Resist
the urge to believe that it will all work out on the road and no
matter what you will be fine. I am begging you to inform yourself on
how to be safe, to put your phone away, to put on your seatbelt, and
know that you are by no means invincible.
