Being in command of
a 1.4 ton motor vehicle is not a responsibility every person is ready
for. We see deaths related to driving on television, in the movies,
or through friends or family members that were impacted by poor
decision-making. Personally, I’ve seen people come close to it in
my lifetime. My grandmother lives on a corner house on a busy street
on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania.
When I was younger, and still to this day, my father would tell me to
be extremely careful when approaching the street or the corner
because many accidents have occurred in that area in the past. He
would say that you never know what a person is thinking or what their
next move is going to be while they’re driving. About a year ago my
family was visiting my grandma and immediately after we got in the
house, a person crashed into the front porch. Luckily, both the
driver and the passenger only had small injuries but this experience
has scarred me. It made me nervous to start driving because I feared
that I might injure others if I am not careful enough.
This fear is a good
type of fear if you are able to control it. It’s the type of fear
that drivers ed courses should instill into new drivers.
Most sixteen-year-olds are ecstatic that they finally get to learn to
“hit the road”. It allows for liberty, independence and
responsibility, all characteristics of maturation into adulthood but
not everyone is mature enough at such a young age. When a teen
studies to take their permit test, they are required to know all the
road signs and markings but not the fact that more people have died
driving in a year in the U.S than those who died in combat during
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined or that a total of 37,133
people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2017, 2,734 of them being
teen drivers. Knowing this type of information in addition to traffic
laws will create a generation of defensive drivers. Drivers who have
the impression that they are not the only ones on the road and won’t
instigate a situation that could end up fatal.

As I continue
learning to drive and advance to the “real road” and not just
abandoned parking lots, I take note of the fear that something could
happen while I’m driving, but I don’t let it get to my head. Now
that I have this fear, I know that I will be a careful and conscious
driver who is ready for the responsibility of operating a vehicle 280
times my weight and hope to see other drivers with the same mindset.