I kept thinking of the best thing to write about for the essay scholarship contest. Then, I remembered something that once happened. I once witnessed a tragic event that I didn't quite understand it at the time. It was like a scene out of the movie. I saw something that no young child should ever have to witness. Looking back, I now understand what I didn't quite get at the time. I now understand what caused the driver to take his eyes off the road. Anyways, The story begins like most stories. Except, this is a true story. It was a dark and cold night, I was out late one night with my mother. The ground was a little frozen, it must have been winter. We were at a 7-Eleven and a car was down the road about to drive past us. It was a white car down the road. I don't think there was any other car close to it, I think the road was nearly empty that night. My mother and I had saw that the driver was fighting with a lady who was sitting in the passenger seat. My mother called the cops and said that the driver was fighting the passenger of the vehicle while he was driving with a little girl in the backseat. As they drove by, the car drove off the road and crashed into a tree right near the 7-Eleven. That's when I saw it too-There was a little girl in the backseat. The little girl's grandma came to get her and her mom. It turns out the passenger had a hickey on her neck and the boyfriend snapped (at the time I didn't understand it). My mother explained it to me without going into details. At that time I probably didn't know what my mother meant by the lady had a hickey on her neck. My hands and feet were so cold- that was all I could think of at that time. I tried saving my breath instead of asking more and more questions about what was happening. Thankfully, it seems they all had on seatbelts (At least they did something right). When he was fighting her he had lost control of the car, he could have killed all three of them. The little girl didn't seem traumatized by it, her mom was crying. An officer had gotten the little girl a hot chocolate from 7-Eleven cause it was freezing (I remember her asking for a Slurpee). The officer went back inside and brought her a small Slurpee too. The driver (the dude who beat his girlfriend) was taken to the back of the cop car in handcuffs. If the dude had paid attention in Driver's Ed or any test before getting his driver's license he would have known to not take his eyes off the road. One second is all it takes. Driver's education tells you important information so you don't kill yourself and others. I think it's important we pay attention to things in Driver's Ed instead of just nodding our heads with an earbud in each ear. Steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving are:
1. eyes on the road (not on the person next to you)
2. Don't drive with any passengers who are wild or plain old trouble
3. keep a seatbelt on unless you want to go flying ( you won't bounce back like Superman)


Thankfully, nobody I know drives like a maniac. No friends or family members of mine drive like that. What steps I could take to be a better and safer driver is to make sure I ain't driving near any student driver cars and make sure I don't have any wild passengers in the car. I can also make sure I never get in a car with somebody that looks sleepy or creepy. That reminds me although some people carpool to save the environment/ protect our planet it can be highly dangerous. People should only carpool with people that they know even then it can still be dangerous to have too many people in one car. And people should try to avoid driving very late because there is some very twisted people out there and some people might not be able to see well at night. So, folks remember don't drink when driving, don't drive with wild people, seatbelts always because you're NOT Superman (even if you were Superman that would still be reckless), DO NOT drive if you are really sleepy, and DO NOT drive a lot at night on dark empty roads because that is literally a scene in lots of horror movies. Oh, and you should probably already know-No texting while driving.