2 seconds. That’s all it takes. A quick glance down at one’s phone, slowly veering into the next lane, and a head-on collision with the car driving in the opposite direction.
34,000. The average number of individuals who are killed on the road each year.
11.8 million. The number of young individuals behind the wheel in 2022, 
One of the first things my father taught me when I began driving was to always be a defensive driver. “You never know how other people will drive,” he told me. And, after a couple of years driving, I have learned the weight of this truth. One never truly knows what decisions others will make behind the wheel or what type of situations they may run into while on the road. Therefore, it is essential that each individual is educated and prepared to get behind the wheel.
It can be easy to romanticize the freedom driving brings: going anywhere you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want, because who can truly stop you? However, the statistics listed above highlight that when a teen puts that car into drive, they hold not only their own life, but the lives of others in their hands as well. Therefore, driving safety should be of utmost importance when preparing to drive, because when it comes to the lives of others, safety should be concern number one.
However, in order to address the importance of teen driving safety, one must answer the question as to how individuals become educated drivers. One answer to this is written in the question: driver’s education. Along with experience, individuals who have taken a driver’s education course prior to receiving their license have shown to be safer drivers. According to a study by the Center for Injury Research and Prevention and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia focusing on a state that requires driver’s training for individuals under age 18, “Compared with drivers licensed at age 18, those licensed at age 16 had 27% lower crash rates over the first two months of licensure and 14% lower crash rates over the first 12 months of licensure,”. Among a number of other statistics within this study, the overall conclusion was that driver’s education and training before one obtains their license contributed to lower crash rates within a year of driving.
Although driver’s education cannot ensure that drivers will make good and proper choices down the road, the initial effects of this training can have long-term impacts. The secondary outcomes of driver’s education, such as improved driving performance or a decrease in traffic offenses, can lead to better driving habits, and, ultimately, better long-term driving performance.
Improvement in long-term driving performance is not achieved solely through driver’s education, however. There are a number of challenges facing teenagers approaching driving, the biggest, in my opinion, being distracted driving and lack of experience. I know from my own personal experience just how quickly a glance down at a phone can go wrong and cause potential harm to oneself and others. Although I was not injured, I remember a specific night very vividly, and I believe it is because I know that great harm could have come out of my ignorant choices.
It was around nine-o’clock at night. Having just clocked out and said goodnight to my co-workers, I navigated through the dark to my car, placed my phone in the cupholder, and began my seven minute drive home. About two minutes into the drive, I decided that the song playing was not to my liking for the moment and that I instead wanted to play a different song. In fact, it was a song not on my playlist, so I would need to look it up. That is when I made a decision that many teenagers my age make each day.
I glanced down at my phone, finding the correct letter for this song that was seemingly imperative to enhancing my seven minute experience from work to home. Going thirty-five miles per hour, my car was going about fifty-one feet per second. This means that each second I was looking down at my phone was another fifty feet of road I was driving without looking.
And this is something I realized once I looked back up.
In the approximate two and a half seconds it took to find a few letters, my car was practically in the lane meant for cars going in the opposite direction. I immediately straightened my wheel, threw my phone in the passenger seat, and thanked the Lord that I was alone on this road. I spent the rest of my drive hyperaware of what was in front and around me, not allowing myself to take another careless chance.
Although I was not injured, other individuals who have made the same mistake I did have had irreversible consequences. Whether it be losing a friend or being critically injured, teenagers must realize that what may seem quick and innocent can have a long-term, irrevocable impact.
I learned this lesson through experience. This is why I want to teach others to be safer drivers before they experience a horrific driving accident themselves. Because while it is true that we learn from experience, I want others to learn from my harmful experience, so that they do not go through something tragic themselves. Therefore, one of the best things teens, schools, and communities can do to help young drivers overcome driving challenges is increase awareness over the dangers of distracted driving and making ignorant choices on the road. Individuals can do this through research or reaching out to reliable resources such as one’s Department or Bureau of Motor Vehicles, where there are a number of answers to questions anyone may have over driving and driving safety. Additionally, having one-on-one conversations with experienced drivers can be extremely beneficial. Those more experienced have a vast amount of knowledge to pass down, and lessons can be learned through hearing the experiences of others. Afterward, these same individuals should go on to share this information with others and continue the cycle of spreading awareness. Ultimately, if communities, schools, and teens became committed to providing others with the necessary information about driving safety and spreading awareness, then I believe we would see a massive increase in driving safety in our youth.
My grandmother once told me that there were school-taught driver’s education programs, where driving safety became part of the curriculum because of how important it was. What if we returned to that same mindset and began to see driving safety as one of the most important lessons to teach our youth? Because, ultimately, driving is more than turning a wheel, it is taking on a responsibility to protect oneself and others from harm.