About a month ago, I was in a serious car accident. I was driving on the freeway to my friend's wedding reception, and I lost focus on the road and driving. The next thing I know, my car is fishtailing back and forth, and I have lost complete control of the car. I hit the left side barricade on the freeway. The car behind me didn’t have enough time to slow down, so they hit the driver side of my car which caused my car to spin across all lanes of traffic and hit the right side barricade on the freeway. I walked away with very minor injuries which included whiplash and some very minor bruising and cuts. This is crazy to think about! I was driving on the freeway during rush hour traffic in a very busy city. The fact that only one car hit me, and I was able to walk away from the injury with barely any injuries is a miracle. I’ve reflected multiple times on what my life could be like if the results were very different. Because I spun across all lanes of traffic, I could have been hit by other cars and be injured in a much more serious way. Not only could I have broken bones or injured myself in some more consequential way, but I could have injured others because of my careless actions. There could have easily been a passenger in the car with me, or some other person in a car on the freeway could be injured. There were so many lives that I potentially put at risk because of my bad driving. Nobody wants to end up in the hospital because some idiot was recklessly driving and caused them to get in a car accident and get injured. On a more serious note, someone could have died because of the way I was driving. Losing someone close to you is an absolutely heart wrenching experience. Driving is a dangerous activity. I was aware of the dangers and risk of driving, but I became more aware of it after my crash. I have become a much safer and cautious driver since then. I want others to understand the potential risks they are putting themselves and others in by driving distracted.
When I took driver's education in high school, we learned a lot of safe driving techniques and habits. Distracted driving was talked a lot about, and we watched a video of someone’s viewpoint as if they were driving. The people in the class were just supposed to watch the video. After it was over, the teacher asked some questions about what we remembered from the video. Some of them were things like “How many stop signs/ lights did the driver pass?”, “How many pedestrians did the driver pass?”, “How many bikers did the driver pass?”, and a few other questions similar to these. I remember thinking the driver didn’t pass any bikers, but when we rewatched parts of the video, I realized there were two bikers that I hadn’t noticed. I took driver’s education a couple years ago, but it’s interesting that I remember this video activity so well. It helped me realize how not fully present drivers can be. When I knew to be looking for the bikers, pedestrians, etc, I could easily count how many there were, but when I was just mindlessly half aware of the video, I couldn’t recall seeing them at all. I think this happens often when people drive. They are driving but aren’t really paying much attention to their surroundings. This happened to me in my car accident. I was driving on the freeway and the next thing I know I am veering into another person’s lane of traffic. I had to hurry and try and correct it, but instead I overcorrected and lost control of the car.
All of this could have easily been avoided if I was paying attention to my surroundings and not off in a “la la land” I don’t think new drivers realize how much is at risk when they drive their car. I know it’s super exciting and such, but when you drive you not only put your life in danger, but the lives of anyone in the car with you, pedestrians, bicyclists, and the other people in the cars around you. This is a scary thing to think about!
Driver education is so important!! I think teaching it in the school system and making sure lots of practice is done behind the wheel is critical. When I took driver’s education, we had a classroom portion that ended in a written test. To receive our license, it was required to drive and observe a certain amount of time with the instructor behind the wheel. The only issue with this was the amount of time separated between the time we took the in class portion and the driving portion. In the class, many laws and safe driving techniques were taught, but many of these were forgotten quickly after taking the class because the principles were not applied and retained in actual driving circumstances. I believe learning happens through actual application and trial and error. It is often left to parents to instruct their child on how to drive, but this is problematic because the driver’s education instructors know the laws and safe driving habits. Many parents don’t know all of these things, or they might just be bad drivers themself. If the in class portion was taught first, and then immediately after finishing it, it was required to get a certain amount of driving time with the instructor, I believe drivers would start learning to drive with excellent habits already ingrained in their memory. Driving education is so important and has the power to save so many lives. New drivers can be properly instructed on overall safety while driving and help us prevent and decrease the number of car accident deaths that happen each year.