More
Than a License
Andrew
Harper

When my driving
instructor handed me my certificate for the first time, I had no clue
what I had gotten myself into.

As a teenager, the
idea of driving was idolized in my mind. Because I live in a fairly
rural town, anything remotely interesting was miles and miles away
from my house. I was so tired of biking back and forth to the
supermarket each stifling hot summer day that I begged my parents to
put me through drivers’ education. I dreamed of driving my
air-conditioned car to the store, being able to park in the parking
lot without the fear of having my bike stolen while I was inside.

When I finally
received my license four days after my sixteenth birthday, I was
elated. I drove everywhere. Whether it be across town or to my
neighbor’s house three doors down, I took every opportunity to
drive my car wherever I liked. Driving became the most fun thing for
me to do. Summer nights riding around town with the windows down
became the American dream I was living. Every time I hopped in my car
I felt an incredible freedom unlike any other.

Not soon after
receiving my license, I met my girlfriend. She just so happened to
live BARELY within driving distance of me, two hours. It was a
straight shot on the highway from my house to hers, so I never gave
the drive a second thought. It was only a drive!

Naively, I
disregarded everything my parents told me about driving that far. I
took the drive when it was rainy, snowy, or foggy. I took the drive
when I was awake, when I was tired, and when it was pitch black
outside. I drove in any and every condition, ensuring my parents that
I was equipped to make the drive over and over again without
problems.

The real problem
came on a fateful morning when I had forgotten to check my GPS before
getting on the highway. I had never had a problem navigating with my
GPS, but when I was halfway to her house, it changed my directions
and had me take a southern route I had never driven before. Not
having ever faced this problem before, I panicked. I soon found
myself boxed in by fast moving semi-trucks on every side. My heart
rate increased and I didn’t know what to do. As I quickly was
running out of gas, I decided to speed up to get back on to the
highway with a marking I recognized. I got my bearings as I entered
the toll booth, but quickly lost them again on merging on to the
highway I had never seen before. Carelessly, I began to speed and
speed and speed without recognizing how fast I was going. In my
moment of panic I had forgotten everything I had learned about
staying calm on the road.

The officer pulled
me over just as fast as I had been speeding. I was given a ticket for
$250, something I couldn’t afford in the slightest at that time. I
continued my drive far more carefully than I had begun it.

On the way home,
that same sense of panic overcame me. My GPS was broken for good and
I had no clue where I was going. When I got closer to my town I went
on high alert again. I began to recognize roads that I was sure I had
never seen before, becoming more and more distrustful of my own
memory.

When I finally found
the exit I normally took to go home, I found that it had been blocked
by construction. Realizing that the exit was closed, I took a sharp
left onto the reentry bridge. It wasn’t sharp enough.

Where all my panic
had compounded into an enormously stressful situation that I was
still too cocky to recognize, I soon found myself in a nearly fatal
accident costing me thousands of dollars.


The guilt I felt for
my actions led me to a small courtroom where I was sentenced to
repeat my drivers’ training in a small class of traffic offenders
just like me. My teacher was a jolly guy who understood that we had
all made a mistake. He forgave us when no one else did and taught us
that there was still a chance for us to rebuild our driving skills.
After that second set of drivers’ education, I was more confident
in my driving abilities and more willing to be responsible for my
state of being while driving.

My second drivers’
education teacher gave me a sort of confidence that my first teacher
never could have given me. He inspired me to understand the warnings
I had been told about driving while tired or stressed, causing me to
make a major change about my driving habits.

Though I had to pick
up a second job to cover the costs of my actions, I realized that
going through drivers’ education was more important than I ever
made it out to be before my accident, it was the only thing between a
teenager and the open road that explicitly aimed to put the safety of
the driver in their own hands, a lesson I had to relearn the hard
way.