Drive safe now, so you can drive safe for the rest of your life.

Will Spak

Safe driving

Not many students understand the importance of safe driving as I do. As an Emergency Medical Technician, I have plenty of knowledge about the subject. In my class they showed us pictures, told us horrifying stories of driving incidents that happened not far away from our town. Hearing the viewpoint of first-hand witnesses to incidents that happened just down the road is quite grueling. In addition to being an EMT, I’m also a high school student, and I know plenty of people in my class that took drivers ed class as a joke and will joke around in their cars on the road, racing their friends. Drivers ed is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. When I took drivers ed I got 8 hours of time on the road with a skilled instructor. Those 8 hours took all of the book-knowledge I got from class and put it to use. I learned things with my instructor that I simply could not learn from the book. It is so vital that teens take drivers ed because people who don’t take drivers ed are 24% more likely to get into an accident. If everyone took drivers ed, there would be less accidents for a fact.

Deaths resulting from motor-vehicle accidents have taken the lives of about 40,000 people in just the US for three years in a row. Many more people are injured or disabled from them. What can be done about this is reinforcing drivers ed, make it absolutely required to take by anyone who wants to get their license. However, if it’s required, then I don’t believe it should be 500$, at least not for families who cannot afford it. Alongside this we should make it more of a stricter class, as I mentioned previously many students didn’t care about the class and just joked around on their phones, this should not be allowed.

I’ve been in numerous cars where people pull out their phones to send a text, even my own mother, and I just don’t stand for it, I’m not mean about it or anything, but I just ask them to put their phone down, or I’ll offer to send the text for them. One incident that sticks with me is when my brother got into a car accident, it was right in front of me and I was only 7 years old. My mother, father and I were behind him in a car and he pulled out of the driveway only to get slammed by someone speeding down the road who blew a stop sign. He ended up being okay, but it was still a scarring event.

In order to further improve my driving, I have been driving with my father, who is an experienced driver, to make sure I have a thorough understanding of all traffic laws. I would like to help others be safer on the road by creating awareness of the issue of unsafe driving, and how it affects many people.