Driving Can Be Scary

It’s nearing midnight and the wind is howling. You hear a rustle in the woods nearby and you rush to your car so you can hurry away from whatever that was. You breathe a sigh of relief...you’ve escaped that creepy forest, and now you can cruise by under the streetlights all the way home on empty roads- but that doesn’t stop you from glancing back at the forest as you go. Jamming to Circles on the radio, you’re about to take a u-turn when you see something out of the corner of your eye that makes your whole body freeze.

The car that came swerving at you, 20 miles above speed limit didn’t even honk as it shot past you, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal collision.

The scariest things waiting in the dark for a young driver are more often than not, other drivers. And even scarier are the decisions that young drivers have to make at those split-second crossroads between life and death. The number one reason young drivers get in accidents is because they don’t have the experience to consistently recognize that danger and make the correct decisions in response.

But, as a 17 year old driver, hearing that “inexperience” is the leading cause of teen crashes can be discouraging. After all, how can a driver gain the proper “experience” to make the best decisions in the minutes before they shift their car to “drive”?

Inexperience in a young driver can be broken down into a few key mistakes: lack of scanning on the roadway, driving too fast for the road conditions, and being distracted by something inside or outside of the window.

These are all habits that a young driver must grow out of. Part of the solution is to, as many states do, continually stress the importance of putting the phone away, the importance of travelling with as few passengers as possible, especially other teens, the importance of being rested before getting behind the wheel, and the importance of encouraging parents to provide their young drivers the proper lessons on the road while in training. These are the steps that every young driver and their families must keep at the forefront of their mind’s because they are critical towards reducing driving fatalities.

But frankly, much more can be done to keep a young driver safe from the moment they begin their drivers ed, rather than advertising safety after they’ve already hit the road. After all- a driver can’t gain the proper experience to make the best decisions in the minutes before they shift their car to drive.

To make this progress, drivers ed must evolve into guidance that’s more comprehensive than heart-rending videos, lectures, and multiple choice bubbles. In place of the usual regurgitation of facts and figures about young drivers on the road, drivers ed must take a more student-centric approach that recognizes each young driver as an individual, with their own predispositions and potential.

Students need to be given more time on the road with professional driving instructors in order to form the habits of an experienced driver and to recognize their own driving strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, students need to be given the opportunities in their classes, through on-road time, and conversational, simulation, and video walk-throughs with input from instructors to navigate through the decision making thought process themselves. Improving off of your own mistakes is a much better way to learn than hearing about someone else’s mistakes.

Experience is not something any young driver or parent should have to wait on. It can be built bit by bit from the student, parent, and instructor from the moment a teenager decides they want to drive. Driving, can be scary, and for good reason, but with the proper education, a young driver can make the excellent decisions that will save lives.

Source for more information: https://www.nsc.org/driveithome/teen-driver-risks/inexperience