Nearly every day I see irresponsible teenage drivers leaving my school. Nearly every day I witness near car crashes due to an inadequacy to yield, or from a distracted driver texting. Every day I wonder why teenage drivers don’t seem to care more about driving responsibly. Recently, I’ve concluded that this has to do with the mindset that many have, including myself for a time: that it’s just a story–it won’t happen to them. With continued classes to teach safe driving techniques and a push to encourage these behaviors outside of instructional time, I believe that roads can become a safer place and result in fewer fatalities.
My friend in college had the typical teenager mindset before she was T-boned–both the driver and she were distracted. Luckily, she walked away physically unharmed as the truck hit the empty passenger side, but she was emotionally shaken. Seeing her later that day, shaking and distraught, brought reality to the fact that car accidents can and do happen to those we care deeply about.
Driver education classes, primarily for teenagers, are especially important in that we are the most impressionable for picking up on habits and new knowledge. Taking driver's education classes teaches one the correct driving techniques to safely communicate one's intentions on the road. Learning the proper techniques of driving is essential to being a safe driver, as one becomes able to safely navigate with other cars so they can successfully get to their destination, and so that they’re keeping others on the road secure. Research has shown that teenagers who take driving education courses seriously have resulted in fewer fatal accidents than those who took it and only did the bare minimum to pass. Additionally, it has been shown that teens taking effective driver’s education have a low likelihood of receiving a traffic violation during their first few years of having a license. If teenagers can learn good driving habits early on, these habits will continue on throughout their lives, and they will remain good drivers. It is important to instill these habits in people early in their lives before they have time to develop bad habits, as bad habits are hard to get rid of. Oftentimes it is these bad habits, such as texting and driving, or being an aggressive driver, that result in fatalities.
More important than driver education, however, is the influence of parents on how a teenager learns to drive. From very early on in one’s life, a kid picks up on how their parents drive: if they have road rage, drive smoothly, speed, or immaculately follow the rules of the road. Parents have a huge role in how their teenager will learn to drive, in that they are likely to copy the driving style of their parents. For myself, notice that I take more after my mom, who is patient and respectful of the road rules. Like her, I clearly communicate to other drivers what my intentions are, and respectfully enact them. If driver education courses could reach out to the parents, and encourage them to practice habits such as setting a phone into Do Not Disturb mode, driving the speed limit, and using proper communication signals, it would go a long way into countering the most common types of accidents that teenagers experience.
For myself, I most need to practice relaxing on the road. As a driver, I am very uptight and get easily frustrated with people on the road when they fail to communicate with me effectively or make a rather unsmart decision, putting myself and them at risk. When I get ticked off I become a more aggravated driver in that my actions become sharper and less smooth. Recently, I have been working on shaking it off and focusing on whatever music is playing to help take my mind off of my frustrations. I have found that this is helpful and I can more quickly go back to my usual smooth and careful driving habits which in turn keeps others around me in a better driving environment.
Driver education is a critical class for teenagers as it teaches them how to drive properly so that they can keep themselves, and those around them, safe. However, being in a classroom only does so much and there needs to be an initiative to have proper and safe influences around them outside of the classroom to make a bigger impact on teenagers learning to drive. Recently, my sister has begun to take driver's education courses and I have become more concerned about instilling safe driving habits in teenagers so that everyone can stay safe, and return home to their family at the end of the day.