Inflated Egos & Fearful Drivers

Proper driver's education is a key pillar to our car-centric nation, acting as the primary feature to ensure that every driver on the road is fully aware of their limits, their vehicle's limits, and the unpredictable nature of their fellow drivers. Having a comprehensive driver's education teaches every student more than mechanical prowess, into a proper psychological state for driving, confident yet cautious. The dangers we see today on the road, the primary root cause of accidents, come from people who deviate from this balance of caution and confidence. Tipping towards one end is paralyzing anxiety, and tipping towards another is reckless overconfidence, with either end turning the common Altima into a liability for every driver around it. These drivers often lack formal education, which has allowed them to deviate from the standard we have set on our motorways.

Anxiety behind the wheel creates indecision, and indecision quickly becomes a wrench tossed into the cogs of the machine that make up a motorway. A lack of confidence creates a lapse in judgement that ends in a frozen individual, who can't respond or defaults to their brakes. Recently, I found myself behind a driver who didn't have the confidence to navigate the highway. Maybe they missed their exit, or maybe they got on the freeway by accident, but either way, they froze up. They slammed their brakes and came to a complete stop, blocking both a travel lane and an exit lane. This put me at direct risk; had the car behind me had brakes that were not properly maintained or had a mechanical error, I very well could've been seriously harmed. This stop created a ripple on the freeway as well, for who knows how many miles. Furthermore, the anxiety of a driver doesn't end just behind the wheel but even as a passenger. For new and young drivers, the anxiety of a passenger is enough to put them in danger. One command, one shout, and a young learning driver slams the brakes and gets hit by oncoming traffic. This is a great risk and dissuades young drivers from learning the proper rules of the road. It creates another generation of anxious drivers after an early accident caused by another anxious driver. Given a proper driver's education, both could be correct, accidents could be prevented, and a better driving experience could be provided to all of those on our freeways and roads.

On the opposite end of this driving spectrum is an overconfident driver who bypasses formal driver's education, viewing the motorway as a personal obstacle course to their one objective, getting to their destination as soon as they can. For those who do engage in life-saving driving coursework at all, it is often a begrudging attempt to reduce insurance premiums instead of absorbing the genuine and necessary principles of driving. Without the reality of a formal driver's education curriculum, which often emphasizes stopping distances, impact physics, and the fragile balance of vehicle control, overconfident drivers operate under the illusion of being invincible on the road. The financial toll of being overconfident is clear. I had a classmate in my past who invested almost a quarter of $100,000 into a project car they found precious to them. They regularly went over the freeway speed limit by 30 MPH, and while they regularly maintained their car, they had a lapse in judgment regarding their car's abilities. Their overconfidence led them to hydroplane, totaling the car. Given that they had taken a driver's ed course, they may have been more careful, mindful, and considerate of other drivers. Beyond the financial loss, overconfident drivers pose a high risk to their own lives and the lives of others. In my personal experience, I had a coworker lose his son who was recently wed. This tragedy occurred because his son had begun speeding and driving recklessly, which ultimately resulted in a collision that brought his end. He could not decelerate or maneuver in time to avoid that fatal impact; if he had been taught to drive more safely, he might be here today.

Ultimately, driving is a social contract between people. Tragedy strikes when that social contract is broken. Near misses from reckless driving, slow traffic from panic, and accidents due to sudden stops are completely preventable. A proper and robust driver's education provides the opportunity to correct those who deviate from this social contract. It creates a well-rounded driver that is equally confident and cautious, wary and certain, which keeps our motorways safe and reduces deaths in our nation.