MATTHEW COCKFIELD HARRIS


While this will not
be the most popular response, I truly believe that my suggestion will
help save lives. Drivers ed needs to be redesign. Young
people should be required to take one full semester of driver’s
education. In addition to in-class videos and readings, we should
attend support groups of families that lost loved ones to
irresponsible drivers, visit hospitals to see the devastating
injuries from car accidents and have a minimum numbers of volunteer
hours related to driver safety. The number of hours students must
drive with an instructor should be increased. Finally, all drivers
should be required to take a driver safety course annually, this will
remind everyone of the importance of being a responsible driver.

In 2004 my mom had a
car accident while pregnant with my brother and I was 2.5 years old.
We were driving on a two-lane road in Far Rockaway, NY and a dog ran
in the road. My mom swerved and accelerated instead of depressing the
break. Our car rolled several times and we almost went over a
barrier wall into the waters of Rockaway Beach. Fortunately, we stop
rolling after the third roll as the fourth would have landed us in
the water. My mom crawled out of the vehicle and pulled me from the
wreck. She did not notice that the light pole she’d hit was
leaning and would eventually fall on our car. An EMT was heading to
work and saw the light leaning and drove his car to where we were,
exited and screamed for us to move. Moments later the light fell on
top of the car. Thankfully, we were not harmed by this accident. My
mom had to remain in the hospital for a week due to the crash causing
bleeding and my brother had to be closely monitored. He is about to
turn 15 in June and is doing very well. I share this accident
because my mom should have never been driving in her condition. I do
not mean because she was pregnant, she was emotionally incapable of
driving. You see, she had just learned of my father’s infidelity
and let our home, heading to the airport so that she and I could go
to my grandparents’ home in SC. Due to her emotional state, she
should have never been behind the wheel of a car. Lesson from this
experience: DO NOT DRIVE IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO FOCUS ON THE ROAD OR
DISTRACTED BY THINGS, STRESS, HURT, PAIN, ETC.