Help
Us, So We Can Help Ourselves

-H.L Chatman

A
couple of weeks ago, the day that I was supposed to be moving into my
dorm room; to be exact, my friends and I got into an accident. To sum
it up, my right eye was scarred, and had to heal for two weeks before
I got any better. One of my friends, who was the cause of the
accident, dislocated her shoulder. Because we both are from Georgia,
and she received her licensing in Georgia, so she never had to take a
drivers ed class. I am not insinuating that everyone that
does not take a drivers ed class is incapable of driving
safely, but maybe if we had more mandatory driving classes, as well
as defensive courses; the probability of us having as much accidents
a day, as we do now; would be low. In a AAA survey in 2014, it was
said that, “drivers ed is associated with a lower incidence
of both crashes and convictions – reducing crashes by 4.3% and
convictions by nearly 40%.” I hated having to pay $350 in order to
attend a mandatory drivers ed course, but it has ultimately done
me some good. I feel as though, if we truly want to make a difference
- it should be a government job, and the government should pay
drivers ed professors, not the average person, because it is an
obvious deterrent from wanting the class - and reason that nine
people are killed daily due to distracted driving. I order to be a
better driver, one thing I, as well as everyone could do, is
defensively drive. It is one thing to drive well, but if we all
learned how to protect ourselves just in case another driver is
unsafe, we’d definitely be more safe.