Make the decision before it happens

It was just barely dark outside, around 8 or 9 PM when my dad told me to take my sister’s friend home. I had woken up pretty early that day and we had decided to go paddleboarding, making me fairly tired and not in the best shape to drive a car. 

It was also fairly peaceful, there weren’t many cars on the road at this point in time and my sister’s friend didn’t live super far away from our house anyway, a 7 minute drive at most. We came to the first light and I realized that they had just put in another left turn lane earlier that day. 

Believing that it was going to be like all the other times before I had been this lane I stayed. And stayed. We were at the light 3 cycles in a row before I had finally thought, it’s easier to just go straight rather than be stuck here for another 3 lights while we wait for someone else to pull up to the lane right beside us. I turned on my blinker and started to head into the straight lane right next to us, and didn’t notice the car due to negligence due to being slightly irritated at this point in time due to the exhaustion of the day and the amount of time we had been waiting.

The next few moments passed in the blink of an eye. I felt the car hit something and realized that I had caused a crash. I watched as the car I hit had gone from our side to the other and facing the opposite direction, now on the sidewalk instead of the road. In it’s path it had also lightly hit another, and that person had pulled up to the side of the road as well.

At this point I had no clue if anyone had been fatally wounded. I got out of my car like many others to check on everyone and called 911. Afterwards I had called my mom to tell her what had happened and then I broke down, knowing that this situation was all my fault. I wasn’t really able to get anything out unless I was talking to the cops, in which I’d have to take deep breaths in order to calm myself. Luckily no one in the crash was killed, but it wouldn’t be until the next morning until that was confirmed.

That night helped me realize that I should have taken my time checking my blindspots rather than hastily checking and deciding I was fine. I also should have made a decision to not drive that night and have insisted that someone else come and pick her up.

As I look back, I tended to go to school, go through classes and not really take many things to heart so that I could just get through it and be done. This also applied to my drivers ed class, and that I mainly was there so I could get my license and go wherever I wanted to.

When you get to the age where you can drive, most are excited. They want the freedom to drive and not have to wait for their parents to take them. They also want to go hangout and drive their friends wherever, or have a mode of transportation to get to their job, or just to have the experience of driving. I believe that most tend to pay attention in class, and try their best to learn the rules of the road, but there are some like me who tend not to pay as much attention as they should and not make the decisions then and there.

Because of this incident, I was able to reflect on the decisions that I should have made then rather than now, several years later after the fact. I have now opted for driving more during the daytime, only driving at night when absolutely necessary and when no one else can. I have also taken more care in the ways that I drive on the road, being more alert of my blindspots, taking the time to be safe rather than sorry.

Making these decisions back when I was in drivers ed would’ve saved me and my parents a whole world of trouble. So this is the lesson that I let everyone out there know: in order to be safer on the road, make the decision now rather than doing so after the fact. This will help you prevent accidents, save lives, and avoid regrets.