Drivers
Ed, the class where every soon to become driver must take and pass so
that they can start driving, although it is required by law to take
and pass, it is also a class where many students get distracted, look
at their phones, or even take a nap. Like my peers, I did not care
about the class, and yet I passed due to how easy the class was.
Behind the Wheel was a class where all you had to do is drive like a
sane person and drive “perfectly” or however your instructor
expects you to drive, or so I thought. During the last proportion of
my exam, I was required to drive on the highway, “Finally, the last
hurdle I need to jump over before I can go drive on my own, this
should be easy”. The night before my test I felt anxious, so I took
the car out without my parents knowledge to get some last minute
practice in on the highway. The moment my wheels touched the highway
ramp, I knew I just screwed up and that someone was going to die that
night. My car could not go from 35 to 70 mph within the timeframe it
took me to get off the ramp, cars lined up behind me, there were
hardly any openings for me to enter, no one was willing to move into
the another lane, and my lane was about to end. I panicked and cursed
in fear that I was about to get into a car crash, but God smiled down
upon me and the lane to my left cleared up. I darted over to the as
quickly as possible into the left lane and immediately, took the next
exit, pulled over in a McDonald’s parking lot, and cried to myself
for the next half hour. After my face was soaked in tears, I sat in
my vehicle thanking the Lord for saving my life that night, rather
than telling my parents and getting myself in trouble, I spent an
hour driving home avoiding all highways and called my instructor in
the morning to request for more practice before getting on the
highway. The system that taught me how to drive is broken, the reason
why people are getting into car crashes is that they do not care,
students who don’t care while learning are bound to do the same on
the road. We can have the best books or teachers, to properly teach a
lesson, a student must experience driving in intense situations and a
car crash. Obviously, we can’t have students getting into car
crashes, so the next best solution would be to have Virtual Reality
or simulations of students driving on their own and letting them make
their own mistakes and learn before we let them loose risking the
lives of everyone around them.