When asked the question, ”Why is teen driver safety an important public issue, and what role does driver’s education play in addressing it?”, I have the understanding that, in order to drive safely and productively you need to “drive for everyone else on the road”. Alot of people dont understand this, and I believe this contributes heavily to the safety of, not just teens, but every person on the road. Even though alot of people may not have this understanding it isn't the only variable affecting teens while driving, obviously the biggest issue, teens, and even adults have while driving are distractions, more to the point, phones. Cell phones are a great tool that most everyone uses in our daily lives, which is a blessing and a curse, they’re great for navigation, music, communication, and information. Although phones have these great features the bottom line is you probably shouldent use them while operating a 2+ ton vehicle, that has the capability to kill somone. But we still do, which I think shows an interesting side of the human brain, but im not here to talk about the workings of the mind, if we are to better ourselves and teens we need to have a better approach to actually teaching good driving etiquette.

Ways we can accomplish this is by having access to drivers ed, mainly in schools, at least where I grew up we had no drivers ed that was relatively available, most people ethier learned from there parents or never learned at all and resulted to taking the bus or walking everywhere. if you had “rich parents” they would get an outside driving tutor to teach you how to drive.
That would be the first issue that would need to be covered. Secondly, we need to address the fact that driving is not a right of passage or a menial task, driving is a privilege and should be taken seriously, not only for your safety but for the safety of others. When looking at the questions for this scholarship one stood out to me, ”What are the biggest challenges teen drivers face today, such as distractions, peer pressure, or lack of experience, and how can they overcome them?” maily that “how can they over come them” part, you are the only one who can control your life, alot of people I know who are the same age as me, im 19 as of typing this, dont really understand that, I feel like a lot of the issues happening else where or events that could happen in the future really diminish teenagers mindset on alot of things, where it be political issues or what ever, there is a lot of anxiety in my generation, and this is the result of the worlds information being in the palm of our hand no doubt, but it is a large issue that can affect ones driving ability due to fear in the back of their mind, even if they dont feel it in the moment while they are driving its still marinating in the back of their mind and alot of other peoples minds. And this fear can turn into disdain for anything, driving, school, family, or life in general. And its not a topic many people wish to speak but I think it can be one of the bigger challenges eveyone will face. And coming back to the over coming of theses issues, you really cant, they will always be there, but training yourself to live with these anxieties will push you to over come other challenges like driving safely, and protecting yourself.




I had a friend in high school who ill keep anonymous, who on one occasion wasn't the safest of drivers, and had a habit of participating in street races, and on night he initiated a race with a car and about 5 miniutes into the race he swerved too hard on a 4-way stop and hit an old woman in her car flipping his truck into a pole that completely totaled it, his truck was curved like a U after the crash, the older woman was fine but this would leave him carless, or, truckless and in debt up to his neck, and to correlate this to my earlier point that we have to drive under the basis that its not a right, its a privilege and should have your full attention and care. The actions we can take to promote safer driving among young people is to firstly reinstate drivers ed in highschools thast have lost it, or at the very least community centers, if theres no public area thats affordable for people to learn then we will have worse drivers every year. And again just promoting the idea that driving isint a right, and needs your full attention I believe would be a good montra to premote to instilll confidence in teens to concentrate while driving.