Kessler
2

Zelie
Kessler
DmvEdu.org
29
November 2019
Driver’s
Ed Teaches Courage
Plato
once said, “Courage is knowing what not to fear.” Most people
have varying perspectives on driving, such as loving it or disliking
it immensely. The issue with both is that neither have courage--they
do not know what parts of driving they should fear and what parts
they should not. The action of driving someone else should scare
anyone because their life is in your hands, but because of Driver’s
Ed, learning and practicing defensive driving, all new drivers should
have the courage that Plato describes. The problem with our society
is that many people do not have this courage, but I genuinely think
that Drivers Ed, practice, and good examples are an easy way to
teach new drivers the vitality of courage.
Driving
is a huge responsibility, and to get new drivers to realize that,
Drivers Ed is necessary. It has the ability to present current
statistics concerning crashes as well as the reasons behind them,
which I find to be the most important. Many deaths are due to drunk
driving, but what many students’ do not realize that the deaths
accounted for are generally the people hit by the drunk driver. This
is presented in Drivers Ed, which causes students to realize that
they need to be very focused while driving, but then they are also
given defensive driving techniques to practice, such as SIPDE, to
build their confidence and courage. I can say with confidence that
these lessons were what gave me the courage to be a good driver.
I
can also say, from experience, that the more technical lessons such
as the relation of speed to deceleration time as well as road
conditions to driving techniques are vital to keeping our roads

safe
as well as reducing the number of driving deaths. One day when my
friend was driving me, we got into a crash. The car two ahead of us
hydroplaned and spun out, which caused the pickup truck in front of
us to make a dead stop on the highway. This all happened so fast that
my friend could not stop in time and her car rear-ended the pickup
truck.

Driver’s
Ed saved our lives that day. It was clear that the driver ahead of us
did not handle her car well. In a perfect world, she would have
applied what she learned in Drivers Ed to this moment--drive slow
in the rain, and if you hydroplane, continue driving straight and do
not break--but she did not. Luckily, my friend Lauren did. She did
her best to slow down, but when she could not do so in time, she made
the smart decision to not swerve into the other lane and risk a ten
car pile-up--she saved our lives. In the end, Drivers Ed is
important in order to keep the person in the driver’s seat aware
and prepared for any obstacle that could hit them--it gives them the
courage that Plato described.