Driver's Education or Death

If one was to complete any education, drivers ed would be the most important. A college education is important to get the job you want with the amount of pay you want with the knowledge you would need for your job. But all of that is meaningless if you were to die in a car accident due to disobeying a traffic law that you did not know about. If more people were to complete drivers ed, the number of deaths as a result of driving would be reduced. Driver’s education is one of the most if not the most important education one can give themself. Not only is it important to complete, but it is important to retain the knowledge given. Not to mention it is one of the cheapest and easiest educations to learn about and complete. Motor vehicle accidents are one of the top ten causes of death in America. Drivers ed is one step that can be taken in order to prevent the number of deaths due to car accidents to rise.

There have been many times where I was put in a scenario where if I had not completed my drivers ed I would have been severely injured or dead. One scenario specifically, I could’ve died at the hands of someone else who did not appear to have much education on how to drive.

I was driving myself and an underclassman teammate home from volleyball practice. Every day we went through the same round-a-bout to get home. One day I had already entered the round-a-bout and was about to exit. A semi-truck pulled out without stopping because he had not yielded to the cars that were already in the round-a-bout. I had to slam on my breaks to a dead stop, and even then I was still only inches away from hitting this semi-truck. If I had not stopped for this semi who broke the yielding traffic rule, I would have had a head-on collision with his truck. This would have probably totaled my car, and severely injured me and the teammate I was driving home. I was so thankful that I had been aware of the truck not stopping, and the reflexes it took to immediately stop my car dead in its tracks. I was upset after this incident though. I was worried that this same scenario would happen again, except I would be replaced with a less experienced driver who would not stop and would be fatally injured in this accident. I had the thought that this man should go through some type of driving course again, or at least be reminded of simple traffic laws, such as when to yield to other cars.
I have also seen a lot of fatal accidents due to people not being aware of how to drive in bad weather. Living in Colorado, it snows and rains a lot in the fall/winter seasons. In my drivers ed, there were a lot of tips on how to be a safe driver when the weather seems to be working against you. This included the tip of not heavily breaking when your car starts to slide on snow/ice roads. This also included teaching the driving students how to check the tires on your car to be sure that the tread was not worn out too much. These tips have helped me a lot being a young driver in Colorado. Recently I checked my tires to be sure I was prepared to drive in snow season and learned that two of my tires needed to be replaced. I replaced my tires, and now I am prepared to drive with bad road conditions.

There are three kids in our family including myself. My older brother and sister did not complete drivers ed but learned to drive through my parents’ experience. If you compared out driving records side-by-side, my driving record would be the best as I do not have any tickets. My older sister has one speeding ticket and has totaled two cars, and my brother has three speeding tickets and has had two minor accidents.

I believe that one step to be a better driver besides driver’s education is to be constantly aware of your surroundings while driving. In my scenario, this step was the difference between crashing and not crashing. Even if other cars are not aware of laws and of their surroundings, you could save your life, and even theirs if you are an aware and cautious driver. It is also important to encourage others to complete drivers ed. If they did complete drivers ed, this would help them be a safer driver for themselves, and safer for the people around them.