On
my first day of Drivers ed training, my mother pulled me aside
to issue a reminder. “Remember,” she warned, “A car is a
weapon. It’s as dangerous as a gun and a lot bigger. You have to
be careful, and you can’t assume that everyone will do the right
thing on the road.”
I
nodded along, my mind already skipping ahead to the grand times I
would have in the driver’s seat, windows down, music blasting, my
friends singing along at the top of their lungs. As I learned more
about the dirty details of operating a vehicle and the statistics
behind every seemingly constricting law and regulation, though, my
vision of driving became decidedly less glamorous. My mother was
right, I realized, sitting through lectures from the teacher and
guest speakers from the police department. Driving wasn’t a
venture to be undertaken lightly. It was a responsibility I had to
be ready to assume if I wanted to navigate the streets.
Driver
education courses are invaluable to students learning the rules of
the road and the penalties associated with breaking them.
Unfortunately, many drivers of all ages still take unnecessary risks
behind the wheel, endangering their own safety and others’.
I’ve
been fortunate in my vehicular experiences: I have never been
involved in a car accident, and my loved ones have been equally
lucky. However, I witness the dangers of irresponsible driving every
day. My local high school is just a few hundred yards from a
high-traffic intersection, and I see far too many classmates driving
to and from school preoccupied with texting, Snapchat, Twitter.
Since the school year started, the school parking lot has been the
site of numerous collisions; while some don’t result in any
injuries, others have sent students to the hospital for casts and
stitches.

High
schoolers aren’t the only culprits or victims of careless driving.
According to an estimation by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, over 36.7 thousand people were killed in car crashes
in 2018. The causes of some of these fatalities are obvious: adults
driving with their phones braced against the dashboard, with one hand
on the wheel and the other dangling a beer out the window.
Many
of these tragedies are easily avoidable. The most important thing
any person can do to reduce the fatality rate associated with driving
a car is to stay alert and, most importantly, to hold themselves
responsible. When I’m driving and my phone demands my attention, I
ask myself two things. One: Would
you die for this?
The second is more chilling: Would
you kill for this?


It
may sound dramatic, but it’s not that great a stretch. When you
sit in the driver’s seat, you incur a great deal of responsibility;
for your life, for your passengers’ safety, and for every other
driver on the road. So, that text you’ve been waiting on, that
backseat conversation, the alert that you’ve been followed or
friended or liked—
Is
it worth it?