Two years ago my best friend’s brother died in a horrible car accident. The year before that my mother’s car was hit while I sat helpless in the backseat. And even this year my close friend was hospitalized by a hit and run. I can only imagine a world where these drivers were better educated and received more training.I can only imagine a world where drivers like this are abnormal and irregular. I could keep imagining this world, or maybe we could all do something to create it.

Firstly, driver education would help reduce the number of deaths we see on our roads by simply creating more aware and informed drivers. If the drunk driver who killed my friend’s brother had been better educated on the risks of driving under the influence, or had been taught proper planning methods, that could have been one less death. If drivers were better educated on driving through different environments such as the suburbs or cities less pedestrians would be hit by cars. There is so much awareness and training built around avoiding deer or pets, but not nearly enough about not hitting people. The better our drivers understand the rules, norms, and behavior of the place they are driving, the safer our streets will be. This includes not only being taught proper techniques such as slowing for blind turns or looking underneath cars on the side of the road for people’s feet, but also how to navigate new areas and understand how the roads work. It feels scary driving in a new place for the first time, and it is easy to make mistakes when you don’t know your lane is ending, or if your lane is required to turn. This is something education could help with, allowing for less panicked decisions and more safe drives.
The steps all of us can take to make our streets safer is to hold each other, and ourselves, accountable. When I make a mistake driving, pangs of guilt flood my system, I feel so stupid for endangering myself and others. But this is good, not the mistake, but the accountability. If I don’t beat myself up a little, those mistakes could become habits. So we all need to be aware of our own driving, don’t become sedentary, evolve your driving and be safer than ever before. Furthermore, we need to hold others accountable in the same way. Do not allow your friend to grow comfortable texting or eating while driving, hold them to their duties of being a safe driver. Make sure they realize their mistakes, and strongly encourage them to change. If we cannot do this for each other then new laws or programs may never work. It was already illegal for that woman to injure my friend with her car, but she was not held accountable by her family, nor the police in my community. A rule only works if it is enforced, and when rules protect thousands of drivers daily it is our moral responsibility to enforce them ourselves.

When I took drivers ed I paid very close attention, there was a lot I had to learn. But the problem is that many people go in thinking they know everything already, or they take the class online and don’t pay attention. If parents and educators cannot better inspire these teens to really focus on the task at hand then perhaps we have failed already. The best way to make sure kids are learning about road safety is to keep them engaged, no more online classes with the camera off, no more sitting in the back not answering questions. Every child should be held accountable about their education with driving, and need to be encouraged to take it seriously.
At the end of the day driving is dangerous. More dangerous than pretty much everything else we do. While it is not an excuse, it is a reality, a reality many of us, myself included, have faced in the past. If we want to change that reality it starts with better educating the people. Educate them on how their car works, the danger it holds, how to navigate, how to be most safe around others, and what to do in emergencies. Because after all there is only so much about the reality of driving that can be made safer, so it’s best we focus on the reality that is our driver’s education, something we can change for the better. Something that can really make a difference.