My senior year of high school, we had an assembly about driving. This couple came in and talked about how distracted driving changed their lives. The wife was impacted severely in a car accident. She had lost both her parents and can barely function the left side of her body. All because of a teenager driving while on his phone. Driving safe should be a huge priority to everyone because once you get behind that wheel, you are not only responsible for your life but also for any lives that get in that car with you. One winter, I was driving on this road with a lot of snow and slush. I had a friend in the passenger seat with me. My car started to drift side to side and we ended up going into a ditch. Neither of us were hurt and nothing major had happened but it gave me a scare. Not only would it have affected my life but my friends. I see a lot of my friends drive irresponsibly and one of my friends has even crashed a couple times because of the reckless driving. He could’ve died because of their carelessness and I would have lost my best friend. And it’s because of that, that it should be important to everyone to know the safety of driving.
In today’s society, phones are probably the number one problem in a lot of teen drivers. They want to snapchat their friends as they drive. They want to chat with their friends with plans that could wait until they got to their destination. But what they don’t realize is that when they are on their phones, their mind isn’t focused on driving, it’s focused on that little device in their hands. They are putting themselves and others at risk. I will admit that I’ve caught myself doing exactly that and after I heard the story of the couple, I put my phone on driving mode so I don’t get notifications that could distract me from the task that I am doing. It has helped tremendously because now I don’t focus on what people are texting me but I’m focused on driving. I’m usually one that has a lot of people in the car because I was always the one that was available to take everywhere. Knowing that I didn’t have to worry about getting distracted helped me to be more aware of the driving safety.
So, to answer one’s question about the importance of driving education to reduce the number of deaths is they learn the consequences of one’s actions. Driving education allows students to hear and see the types of consequences that can happen when distracted driving or unsafe driving. Learning about driving education is just one step that can help reduce the number of deaths. Another step can be listening to a story like what I was told to show the impacts it can have on you and the other parties involved, if any. Some steps that can be taken by not just me is putting your phone on driving mode to where it doesn’t let you get notifications and you don’t get distracted. Being aware of the lives that you are in control of when driving with more than just you.
When it comes to driving, there are a lot of dangers that can come with it. Especially when it comes to driving irresponsibly or distracted. Your mind becomes occupied by something that isn’t very important. To know the types of distractions and the types of ways to overcome them can help new teen drivers to understand why it’s important to be a safe driver and to help them not succumb to the distractions that this world has created. Teaching students about to get their license about the distractions can help them to better recognize those dangers that those certain distractions can cause. From there, you can help them to find new ways to be a safer driver.
There are many ways to understand the importance and to change the ways of irresponsible driving. To me, the most important ones would be to hear from students their age about their accidents. To hear from lives of people that was impacted by reckless driving. To see and hear what could happen to others. Not many people would agree or see my side of things. Some people might but who knows. Some people probably haven’t had to deal with those types of situations. But to know that anything could happen because of one small notification, or one small reckless decision could change everything in the blink of an eye, could help new drivers to see how important it is to learn about safety when it comes to driving. Knowing the risks and the stories of others like them would help to understand that lives are at stake when driving. I know a lot of what I have written sounds repetitive but sometimes to get the point across to readers or to students, you have to repeat certain aspects of a topic for them to fully understand the risks, the dangers, and the solutions.