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Driver Education Initiative – Driver Education Initiative Essay Contest by Rosalio Castrellon

Name: Rosalio Castrellon
From: Edinburg, TX
Votes: 0

Castrellon
3

Rosalio
Castrellon

Jorge
Arroliga

College
Prep

4
October 2019

Driver
Education Initiative Essay Contest

Lots
of people growing up are learning to drive, and it is crucially
important. Personally, I’ve had struggles with learning to drive.
Though it is a must for anyone to have drivers ed, most
drivers will be inexperienced, distracted at almost any turn, or just
bad in general. There is also a problem in the community with
different types of drivers: night drivers, young drivers, drunk
drivers, et cetera. With the many problems happening around us–
including casualties– these sort of things make me not want to be a
driver.

I
first started learning how to drive when my mom got me into this
drivers ed phone app called Aceable. It teaches what to know about
driving, traffic signs, right of way, how to parallel park, when to
use the brakes, et cetera. After every few lessons, there would be a
quiz of what I learned. I unexpectedly got good grades on each quiz.
I mainly got paranoid about the dangers of driving. There was one
lady who was hit by a drunk driver, but somehow survived, and her
face was gruesomely deformed.

As
my paranoia about driving increased, it actually showed when my
brother was helping me drive. There’s a road behind our house where
there was little to no cars driving on it. That was where he showed
me how to do turnarounds, change lanes, make left and/or right turns,
speeding up, and braking. I would freak out every time there would be
another car on the same road as us. One example: another car passes
by my brother’s car and I was trying to make a left turn. I
instantly panicked and slammed my foot on the brake pedal the second
the car almost goes down in a dip on the side of the road. I would
even get paranoid about driving through stories my family tells. One
story was when there was a blackout at my house. The reason the
blackout happened was because there was someone driving at night on
the road to the left of my house, and then they crashed into one of
the electrical wire poles. Another story happened in the exact same
place. A young pedestrian became a casualty when a night-blind
driver’s car struck him. As I hear these dangerous driving stories,
I say, “This kind of stuff makes me
not
want to drive.”

A
comedian I admire, John Mulaney, says that he is a bad driver. He
says and I’m quoting, “When people get mad at me now, it’s my
fault, when people get mad at me on the highway, that’s my bad, I’m
a terrible driver, I know nothing about cars, I meant to learn about
cars, and then I forgot.” He tells this whole story when he was on
the highway, and I quote, “I’m one of the worst drivers I’ve
ever seen, and I just want you all to know
that
if you’re ever on the highway behind me, uh, I hear you honking and
I also don’t want me to be doing what I’m doing. I don’t like
that I’m in that lane either, and I sure would like to get out of
it! I was on the highway in Texas recently which was like a highway
filled with 13-year-olds. And I was in the far left lane and then it
turned into a U-turn only lane and I started to make a U-turn but
then I panicked because I didn’t wanna make a U-turn! So I put the
car in reverse and then merged right back onto the highway. The best
thing about that was that after that, cars were pulling up and
looking over to see who just did that move, expecting to see like a
100-year-old blind dog who’s texting while driving and drinking a
smoothie, instead they see a 28-year-old healthy man trying his
best.” I honestly sympathize with him.

In
conclusion, driving can be scary the first time it’s being learned.
Over time, a driver will become less anxious as they get the hang of
driving. I may not be a good driver in the future; I prefer riding a
bike than driving a car. Riding a bike is not only harmless to the
environment, there’s also smaller chances anyone could crash in
them. It’s also cheaper than fixing up a car, constantly refilling
the gas tank, et cetera.