Being a teenager during this day in age has shown me how irresponsible people my age can be when it comes to driving. Every once in a while I am constantly hearing about the people around me getting into car accidents, getting tickets, and getting caught while drinking and driving. Not only seeing the terrible incidents that have happened with students I know, but also just driving on the road has shown me how unsafe other people can be while operating a vehicle. These moments have taught me how important driver safety is and how every person should be fully educated in driving. If we were able to ensure that all new drivers were getting a full understanding of how important it is to know driver safety then I think it would slightly lower the chances of death. I believe there are many ways to better the education we are receiving before we are allowed to go out and drive. First way to increase our knowledge on driving safety is having a better system for when it comes to traffic school. Traffic school should be more controlled, there shouldn’t be random, cheap, and easy websites to complete it on. When you are completing traffic school it is meant to teach you and give you a lesson, so you can learn from your mistakes while being on the road. Instead people just buy a cheap and quick traffic school lesson that they can go through very fast. I think the same rules should apply to drivers ed for younger kids, because they do the same exact things. They look for the cheapest, quickest, and easy schooling so they can get their permit as fast as possible. Overall I believe that the online websites we use for driving education should be more monitored and controlled, so we can make sure all people are aware of the large number of deaths that happen while driving.
About two and a half years ago, me, my mom, and my friend were in a car accident after leaving our sophomore homecoming dance. My mom picked us up and we were driving to take my friend home when we came across another car accident on the highway. As we realized what we were approaching, we slowed down and slowly started to drive around the accident. When we started to go around it we were rear ended at a very high speed. We slowed down to about 30 miles per hour, but the car behind us was not paying attention and slammed into the back of us still going 65 miles per hour. Our car was pushed almost half the length of a football field. Once the three of us took a moment to realize what had just happened, I immediately went into a panic episode and I couldn’t stop crying and it became hard to breathe. The adrenaline hit my mom and she started to help me and my friend out of the car safely into the middle divider of the highway. She was taking action, making sure we were safe, talking to the person who hit us to get their information, and collecting all of our belongings out of the car, because she knew it was going to get towed away. Once we all made it safely into the center divider the adrenaline wore off of my mom and friend and they both started to complain of intense head and neck pain. My mom shut down and started to break down, she was crying and was trying to express to the paramedics how much pain she was in. I sat there in the dirt watching my mom be put onto a cervical spine board, put into a neck collar, and driven off in an ambulance. My friend was also taken off in an ambulance because they were both complaining of the same pain in their neck and head. I waited there, balling my eyes out for my dad to come and get me and take me to the hospital to see my mom. When we arrived at the hospital I wasn’t allowed to see my mom, they would only let my dad into her room. The doctors said my mom was suffering from major whiplash and had a very bad concussion. The impact of the car accident caused my mom to bang her head on the chair and caused her neck to aggressively swing back and forth. This night will forever be one of the most traumatizing moments I have or will ever experience. I don’t ever want to feel the way I felt that night again, it was terrifying and beyond scary. No one should ever have to end up in a situation like this. This is why I believe in driver safety and the importance of ensuring all people are completely and thoroughly educated.