Driver Education Scholarship
Driving impacts everyone, whether you’re behind the wheel, in the passenger seat or in the back. This is my story on how I’ve been impacted by driving in all three perspectives, and how I took part in spreading the message of safe driving.
Ones journey of driving starts when they are young, through sitting in the back of the car facing the seats, then once you’re a little older you finally get to see someone driving, not just through a screen. You can finally see how they do those turns, instead of feeling them. With such a fragile body, parents, and other adults try their best to drive safely, to keep you safe. Other drivers won’t care to drive safely if they only have themselves in the car, they are willing to risk their safety, just to get somewhere faster. I know this, because I’ve had the misfortune of meeting the short end of the stick. My legal guardian was taking my older sister, and I to look at venues for her Quinceanera, a monumental moment in a young Mexican girls' life, where she transitions from girl to woman. I was about six years old, my sister fourteen. We were on the freeway in a newly bought navy van, with a beige interior, probably leather. I was dressed in Disney princess shoes, shirt, and pink shorts. We were in one of those lanes that splits off into two. A man who later claimed he was a policeman had turned too late, right into the new van we were all excited about. My body and neck hurt so bad from being brought back and forth so suddenly. We later had to go to a chiropractor for the pain, I don’t think my back ever recovered. Life felt like it stopped in thar moment. We were stuck on the freeway trying to figure out what had just happened, because we knew it wasn’t death, thank God for that, but God my body hurt, and I couldn’t think. The man and my legal guardian had been interrogating each other and asking questions on each other's poor driving. My legal guardian didn’t care for what he had to say because she said that he looked like he was drunk, we never found out because the police and her son had come to help us. My legal guardian made my sister, and I promise to never do something like that.
As I got older, I was finally allowed to sit in the passenger's seat. I could see exactly how to turn, slow down, and speed up. I was learning how to drive from my legal guardian’s son, and my older sister, up until she left for the Navy. For the times she would drive me around she always kept me safe, they both did. Even if those sudden stops startled me while we were on the road, I knew it was to keep us safe from another car crash that happened when I was 6, and she was 14. Even during those sudden stops she’d extend her arm to keep my body from hitting the car. Her efforts extended to teaching me how to drive safely. She not only taught me how to drive safely for others, but how to make sure I am safe. My sister and her boyfriend became my driving teachers, and role models once it was time for me to start learning how to drive on my own.
I not only learned how to drive safely because of the adults around me, but also why it is important to drive safely through a program I had been a part of in my junior year of high school. The program was a partner of the California Highway Patrol, called ‘Every 15 Minutes.’ This program highlights safe driving, DUI awareness, and prevention, especially among teens. We had prepared for months for our fictional video of DUI, our live recreation of the crash, and funeral of students who had been “killed,” in the crash because of a drunk driver. I had been the understudy for one of the students, even though that may seem an insignificant role, the experience impacted me in ways I never would have ever believed in. During our retreat we shared our experiences of unsafe driving/DUI’s, why we joined, and how the program impacted us. This program holds a special place in my heart as I’ve experienced the short end of the stick related to irresponsible drivers.
These experiences have made me promise myself to never drive irresponsibly, whether I’d be under the influence, or just a reckless driver. Unsafe driving could have ended my life so many times in my life, that I never want to be that irresponsible driver that could unknowingly end a child, teenager, or adults' life. I want others to be safe drivers, if not for others, then for their own lives. You don’t want your irresponsibility to be the reason you miss out on a thing as beautiful as life.