It happened the summer after my sophomore year. Like most overachieving nerds my age, I had enrolled in a summer camp. And not just any summer camp mind you, a string orchestra camp to be exact. After I secured Albert, my viola, in the car trunk, I clambered into the middle seat while my dad took driver’s seat. It would be awhile until we reached the school, so I leaned back and gave a yawn. The road was mostly smooth, and my eyes began to flutter shut. But then it all happened so fast. My head thudded against the headrest. My seatbelt strained against my neck. My knee bumped the back of the passenger seat. And we were suddenly in a ditch. I was disorientated and my brain could hardly process what had happened. Naively enough, I thought that car crashes only happened on T.V. or that car crashes only happened to sloppy drivers. None of that applied to this instance. My dad was a careful and experienced driver, and this was real life. It had happened to me. Like most Drivers Ed kids my age, we had gone through Drivers Ed rolling our eyes at what we thought was common sense like “Always look before reversing” and “Don’t drink and drive.” However, having gone through a car crash myself, I can now attest that all those lessons must be enforced and practiced all the time. This instance, another driver was exiting a car repair lot and hadn’t looked left and right before brashly plowing forward and crashing into us. While no one was hurt, the financial and mental damage was enough. I’m a learning driver and this incident has definitely plagued my mind. Driving is not my forte. I fear for how much power I wield as a driver, and the car crash just solidified that thought for me. In my hometown of H-Town, one week can result in “11 fatal wrecks and 12 deaths” as stated by the Houston Chronicle. Keeping this in mind, it scares me that I could be one of those numbers. It scares me that this really could happen to anyone. Therefore practicing safe driving is important. No one, especially an impressionable young teen, should ever have to experience the physical and psychological bruises of a car crash. To reduce the chances of a possible car crash, we should all (of every age group) take drivers ed more seriously and implement those lessons into becoming daily safe driving habits. A study in Nebraska agrees with that because they found that those that take drivers ed had less crashes and tickets. Yes, driving is common sense and the safety rules can be mundane, but they are there for a reason. Laziness and lack of awareness degrades the safety of those around us and we must all work to actively promote safe driving habits in our own daily lives. Let us make sure that no one else becomes just another statistic. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Houston-s-roads-drivers-are-nation-s-most-12865072.php https://www.idrivesafely.com/defensive-driving/trending/does-taking-drivers-ed-course-reduce-car-crashes