Drivers ED & Traffic School
The importance of driver education is the difference between life and death. This isn’t just a seminar in a high school about the dangers of drunk driving, but a life-long dedication to holding yourself and your loved ones accountable for their actions behind the wheel. It takes an in-depth understanding that your circumstances aren’t any different from the average reckless driver. In a lot of rural areas that don’t have Uber, Lyft, or any other ride-share apps, there’s this normalization of drunk driving even after a few beers. On the surface, everyone knows how bad intoxicated driving is. But the truth is, some people are blind to how truly intoxicated they are. A drunk mind isn’t a logical mind. And that’s where other people have to step in. There should never be an instance where every single person around you is too drunk to get you home that you don’t have any kind of plan in place to safely make it. There should never be an instance where for ‘one time’ only you let your friend who had a couple of drinks behind the wheel. All it takes is one time and one mistake to alter the lives of everyone in the car and on the road. On the road, you aren’t just responsible for your life, but everyone’s. And this doesn’t just extend to drinking, but to all sorts of reckless behavior behind the wheel.
Most prevalent and normal of all, use of the phone behind the wheel. When I first began to date my partner, I noticed she had a nasty habit of texting and driving. My housemate has a mother who had that exact same problem and is now in jail for vehicular manslaughter. You never think it could happen to you, until it does. I had a conversation with her about how disrespectful and reckless her actions were to herself, her guests in her car, and the other patrons of the road. Immediately, she grew defensive. For a lot of people, it is hard to admit when you’ve been careless, but it is not a lesson you wanna learn the hard way. In recent years, I’ve noticed a strong initiative towards signs and billboards encouraging drivers to drive safely. But they’re too kind. Too unrealistic. People don’t pay attention to cute little billboards telling you to drive safe. Much like drug and cigarette advertisements, I think advertisements looking to stand out to drivers should be jarring. Not necessarily a distraction, but something that would shock them and make them question their behavior rather than something they feel superior to.
Recently, I had the privilege of seeing Taylor Swift with my partner and some friends in Indianapolis, Indiana. We flew to Indiana with the intention of driving back home to New Jersey. While I can’t recall why we particularly wanted to drive instead of fly, we embarked on that 10+ hour drive hopped up on energy drinks and gas station food. A few stops along the way elongated the journey but it was relatively peaceful. I liked to drive through fields, backroads, towns where people spent their entire lives and I was just driving through. The sky was miraculously clear, clearer than anything you’d see in Philadelphia. I spent a large amount of time with my head glued to the window. I wasn’t driving, I didn’t feel the need to pay attention to the road. It was late in the evening with few cars on the road. I wasn’t expecting anything, then it happened. A car in the opposite lane began to swerve into the median. The driver hit a dip in the media that made the car start to roll farther than I’ve ever seen a car go. Our driver, Brittany, noticed before any of us did. By the time I noticed, the car was flipping right toward us. Luckily, she swerved across the empty lanes into the shoulder. The car ended up right-side up and surprisingly, the driver began to drive. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, a crash that bad and they still had it in them to drive. To us, that seemed like a strong indicator that the driver was under some type of influence. He sped right past us. If he was okay, he didn’t bother to check on us. One second, I’m humming along to a song I can’t quite remember now and the next, I watched as a car barreled toward us and felt a violent swerve. There’s a number of factors that saved our lives that night. We called the cops in hopes that they’d stop him before he actually killed anyone and drove to the nearest rest stop to catch our breath. It was unlike us all the be consumed by silence, but nobody could muster any words. We’d almost died. The rest stop was empty and on the border of Pennsylvania & Ohio. There were graphics everywhere about the first settlers of Pennsylvania and clear as day, a plaque engraved with a statistic about drunk drivers.
“Every day, about 37 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes
— that's one person every 39 minutes. “
We were understandably shaken. I think I texted every person I could to tell them about what we’d just gone through. It was unbelievable. Someone’s stupidity could’ve killed us and we barely noticed or had time to process it. For the first time in my life, I almost came close to dying. And if the median was flat or if Brittany hadn’t swerved a moment earlier, things could have been so much different.
That situation really changed my partner. For lack of better terms, it scared her straight. She apologized to me for ever being so defensive about her own reckless actions. Because it almost happened to her, she was able to understand the fear and vulnerability that comes with not having control over whether or not you live. Her life was at the hands of another human being, a human who didn’t even bother to check on us after his recklessness almost killed us. Driving responsibility is something I will forever remain passionate about, especially as someone who lives in a big city with insane traffic. People are unpredictable behind the wheel. People get angry, act stupid, are intoxicated on drugs or alcohol, or are simply being careless. Many don’t understand until it is too late. That’s where the people who do understand come in. It is just as much an individual responsibility as it is the responsibility of the next person. The steps that I can take as an individual would be to pay attention to my speed, never drive under any influence, and pay close attention to the road. Additionally, be wary of other drivers. While you can be as responsible as you want, you still have to beware of other people’s irresponsibility. The road is a primary example of community - you drive safe to keep yourself and others safe. No one drives alone. As far as legal measures this country can take to ensure safe driving is not more patrol officers, but regular renewals of licenses and competency of driving. Just like you have to get your car inspected, the driver should be as well. Additionally, we are far too lenient with letting drivers who have previous records of reckless driving back on the road. It should not be easy to get back behind the wheel if you’ve been the cause of accidents, if you’ve been far over the legal drinking limit more than a single time, or if you’ve been caught texting & driving. These are all actions that could kill someone - why are we so lenient about releasing these offenders back into the streets?