I’ve never been too fond of driving until I got to experience the taste of freedom that driving unsupervised brought me. When I drive alone with the windows down and the radio playing my favorite song, it feels like I’m in my own world. This would eventually change on one insignificant day, or so I thought. Every day I think about February 15, 2024. Every day I think about what I could've done to prevent what had happened to me. On February 15, 2024, I was in a car accident. It was a day like any other except everything seemed to be going wrong. It all started with the rough day I was having at school, I felt as though I was gonna faint due to hunger and I could not wait to get home. Once I got home my mom had asked me to go pick up my dog's medicine from Walmart. Now at this point, I had been driving, unsupervised, for about a month now and I was pretty confident with my driving abilities, especially considering I live in a more rural area so traffic is pretty light and most of our roads are only two lanes. Leaving Walmart I wasn't paying attention and didn't make a complete stop at a stop sign. I had almost gotten into a fender bender due to my ignorance of the road. I was then on my way to CVS to pick up a book of stamps for my mom. Everything had been going smoothly up until I was on my way home. It was rush hour and one moment I was making a left turn from a stop sign and the next I was getting hit by a big red Jeep. My mirror completely shattered and flew into the car onto me, due to my windows being down. All of the snacks I had just gotten from Walmart were scattered across the car, as well as the Arnold Palmer being splattered across the new Uggs I got for Christmas. The entire experience was paralyzing. The entire door of the driver's side was caved in, just where I had been sitting. I was in pure shock I couldn't feel anything besides the burning sensation on my left arm, and even though I was the one that got hit the accident was ruled as my fault. The next morning I woke up in so much pain it was obvious that the shock had worn off, although I felt pure relief that the only thing I was left with was whiplash and a totaled car I had to come to terms with the fact that I could’ve died. I was relieved to be alive. I had not understood the fragility of human life until February 15th.
February 15, 2024, left my family a little shaken up, to say the least, this caused me to get my driving privileges revoked, courtesy of my dad (and that red jeep), for 5 months after the fact. Now to be quite frank I wasn’t exactly in a rush to get back on the road. I was living in constant fear of being in another accident to the point where I was scared to just be in the passenger seat of a car. It had been 5 months since my accident and my older cousin was graduating high school. My cousins live about 10 hours away from where my family lives and with having a diabetic dog with anxiety, the easiest option was to drive. It was just me and my mom driving so I was expected to drive and help my mother, I got away with not having to drive on the way to our destination, but the drive back home was another story. Which I had no problem with but I was still nervous to get behind the wheel after so long, especially now with having multiple people in the car, such as my cousins. But it was like riding a bike everything felt natural as I maneuvered the car through traffic. Although this was a very unfortunate event that I experienced this accident taught me many lessons. Not only did the accident show me that I can overcome anything but also how to take responsibility for my mistakes, how to be resilient, and patient. Most importantly the accident showed me the the importance of driver’s education and defensive driving. These courses can save lives and prevent accidents like mine, preventing other young people from going through the pain that I felt on February 15th.