Driving is dangerous, it is more dangerous than people are aware of, you are two times more likely to get into a fatal car crash than to be the victim of a fatal gunshot wound in the United States. That shows how likely you are to get into a fatal car crash. To improve driver education we should require driver education to be completed by all people no matter the age and completed every 15 years to renew your license. Young drivers are more likely to get in an accident, which means we need to improve driver education for young drivers to better teach defensive driving so they can be prepared for different situations and how to react to those situations.
Driver's education in the United States needs an overhaul of what is being taught and what is required to be taught. Drivers education does not teach defensive driving and that is if they are even taking drivers education. In my state, Texas drivers education is not required once you are eighteen or older. This idea that you just have to wait two years and you can drive without taking a class by passing a basic test helps explain why teen crash rates are so high. Even if you are under eighteen and you don't really have to take drivers education you have to take a online class and can do parent taught driving where you are required to do thirty hour of driving with your parent but there is no way for the DMV to prove that you did what they require of you other than the online class that the answers are all on the internet. Kids cheat their way through through the online class then have there parent sign they did thirty hours when and they can take the drivers test which is a basic test that does not require you to show any skill other than right hand turn, use of signal, parallel parking, left hand turning, backing up one hundred feet, and follow traffic signs and laws of the road. We could improve this system by first of all requiring driving with an instructor instead of with a parent being a requirement to get your license. I do not think it is possible to combat the cheating of the online drivers education class and it is possible to expect all students to attend a in person class for that. I do think that we should be able to require instructor in car drivers education for all as obtaining your license is a privilege not a right. While we should also require that all ages must complete drivers education to the new standards I talked about above.
I talked about the drivers test and how it does not show that there is any amount of defensive driving known to pass and the basic level that it is at. The drivers test could be improved by walking through situations that would require defensive driving and see how the driver would react to make sure that there is a level of defensive driving knowledge. They could also improve the test by require driving on the highway not just on 2 lane road with low speed. These changes to the drivers test would make it so you had to show a better understanding of driving and that you know how to react in dangerous situations and show that when that actually happens on the road you can react to it in the proper way.
In my time being in the car I have seen people make driving mistakes but some I remember more than others because to me I realized how dangerous what they were doing. One of the times I remember the most vividly was when I was driving with my uncle on the highway. I looked at the speed he was going and it was almost 50 over. He did not even realize how fast he was actually going. He was driving my dads car and there was no one on the highway so when he looked he almost freaked out. If he had not known any better and had freaked out that could have been dangerous but instead he reacted in the right way and slowly slowed down and we were all fine to this day that still stands out to me because he made a mistake but also reacted to it in the right way and it is the fastest I have been in a car. This shows that with the proper education you can drive safe even if you make mistakes.
These are just some of the ways that we could improve drivers education and to make sure that drivers are better prepared before they are on the roads. Such as improvements to the testing system and drivers education requirement improvements.