Watching my parents drive as a small child was always exhilarating. I remember when they would let me sit on their laps and hold the steering wheel as we would drive through the neighborhood streets. My favorite part was honking the horn. These moments gave me a constant yearning to learn how to drive, to know what it felt like to sit behind the wheel, and to feel the car under my control. But then as I grew older and started to practice maneuvering the car in a parking lot, I felt the weight and pressure of what could happen if I didn’t drive safely.
From then on, driving became both exciting and terrifying. Being on the road makes me anxious and stressed. I’m constantly worried that a driver will make a reckless decision and cause me to run into them or to roll my car. The concern I feel while driving gets worse when I’m not the one in control. When riding with friends, I have to stop myself from side-seat driving because I don’t want them to get into a crash.
I haven’t had personal experience with major accidents or crashes, but I have had countless experiences where things could have turned out so much worse on the road if it weren’t for pure luck. One of the scariest moments I had in a car occurred during my senior year of high school. I was carpooling with a school group for an event outside of the city. The driver of the car I was in warned the other passengers and I that they were inexperienced on freeways and larger roads, which did not help as the freeway was the only way to the destination. Funnily enough, the incident happened as we were getting on the freeway. When turning left under an overpass, the line of cars for the on ramp got backed up. The driver of the car I was in sped up and cut in front of another car to where they almost rear ended us. The other driver pulled up next to us, threw something at the car, yelled at us, and then drove away. At that moment, the crack of the throw sounded like a gunshot. I have never been more scared because of a small decision on the road that led to somebody else’s anger.
Personally, I don’t know what I would have done. The decision the driver of my car made was a split second one, just like many, many, many other decisions on the road by other drivers daily. Yet that split second decision resulted in fear, anxiety, and violence. The only way this can be solved is through educating drivers and spending more time with new drivers in different scenarios on the road. During my first weeks of driving, the majority of my experience came from driving to and from school and going around to businesses and stores in the area. I wasn’t experienced in freeway driving. I wasn’t experienced in traffic jams. I wasn’t experienced in rush hour traffic at a stoplight. I had to learn these things after the fact, when I was by myself in my car, making split decisions based on my own good judgment.
Scenarios like these, both fortunately and unfortunately, can’t be planned out. But to limit the number of deaths on the road, they need to be taught and experienced with experienced drivers in the car. I was taught many things about driving from being in the car with my parents. My mom’s worry plus my dad’s determination taught me to have a healthy dose of caution and awareness while out on the road. It also helped even more when they would look at me with proud eyes as I drove safely and securely on the road.
I also believe that driver’s education classes taught me a lot about the rules of the road and how to drive safely. However, the class that I took involved a lot of reading and lectures. It was less about experiencing driving and more about making sure all the information needed was put into my brain. I think that while these classes are important and essential, the way they are taught and the amount of work done by the students needs to be improved. At my high school, a certain number of hours needed to be spent practicing skills like parking, turning, stopping, and checking blind spots. There was also a certain number of hours that needed to be spent in a car with the instructor driving on public roads. After meeting the requirements, I felt more prepared, but not as prepared as I should be for driving on roads with other drivers who probably aren’t prepared enough either.
I think that more hours should be spent with instructors and with parents to help educate new drivers on the road, because the only way to learn what the correct decision to make is to either watch it happen or experience it for yourself. I also know that if I were to have been taught more in depth about different situations that could happen on the road, I would have felt a lot more prepared when driving by myself for the first time.
As the years have gone by, I try to be a good passenger and watch out for the driver’s back. I help them look both ways at a crossroads or help them to stay aware on busy roads. By keeping both myself and my friends accountable for the decisions we make on the road, I hope to decrease death rates on the road, even if only by a small percentage. Driver education is important, experience is important, and self-accountability is important.