Safe Driving: Mandatory

Safe driving is something that is very important for everyone to learn. Drivers ed teaches its students many things. Those things include learning the dangers of driving in certain weather and how to avoid some scenarios that may be life threatening. Apart of the education is you get to have hands on experience. Each time you go out and drive you get to learn something new: the different types of turns, interstate driving techniques, the importance of turning signals, and even correctly stopping. Learning about those things while actually driving is very important because you are getting firsthand criticism on how to improve your driving and improving your driving can help you be safer on the roads.

Some steps that can be taken to reduce driving related deaths is to put harsher punishments on those who use their cell phone while driving. It only takes a second to swerve into the other lane while texting someone back and cause an accident that could be fatal. Some states give tickets on cell phone use and others don’t enforce cell phone free driving as much. I’m not thinking jail time necessarily, but a very short suspension of license or a bigger fine.

I have only been in one accident and it was my fault unfortunately. It was during the wintertime and I was driving home from school and while following a car a little too closely, I rear ended them while attempting to break. From that experience, I have learned to not follow too closely, especially with ice or snow on the roads. Luckily, I wasn’t going fast enough to really harm the vehicle or the person inside of it, but there are others who aren’t as fortunate.

Some steps that I can take to become a safer driver is to always check the weather before driving. I always try and stay off the roads during thunderstorms and bad snowstorms, or even after it’s been raining, and the roads might freeze over at night. By checking the weather, I can prepare for the weather I may be in and adapt my driving to the conditions. I can also keep my phone in my bag and not in sight, so I won’t be tempted to answer phone calls or be on it.