The Affects of Dangerous Driving

Driver education in the most important part of learning to drive. No matter how much you practice or learn on your own it will never be the same as knowing the exact laws and methods of driving. I went to driving school myself because of how uncomfortable I was, and still am, with driving. The experience was quite honestly awful, but it made me a good bit more comfortable with driving. I can drive alone now without panicking too bad, and I get better every time I drive. Driving school is a huge help for people like me, it gives a teaching experience that isn’t your parents, who many have trouble listening to, and allows a good slow advancement into being in the drivers seat. To go from learning statistics, laws, and exact ways of how you actually drive to driving around the parking lot of a mall for two hours in this little mini cooper was an interesting experience. But that experience also became my first time on a main road, on a highway, and successfully driving for quite a long distance. Going through driving school did play into a lot of my trauma- I had been in a car crash with my partner of the time a few months before going to driving school. My anxiety over driving was only worsened as the experience still gives me nightmares sometimes. In short I broke my collarbone and they had to cut the door off to get to me since the other car had hit my door. It was not a fun time at all and increased my fear of getting behind the wheel. Before then I’d never really processed just how bad car wrecks were, I’d never been in a major one before. But knowing what it’s like makes it all the harder to get myself driving sometimes.

The effects of a major car crash on a younger teenager are pretty heavy. I was in immense pain, couldn’t do many things for myself, and everyone looked at me with pity- though none of them actually knew what happened until it eventually came out that I was in a car crash with someone. It became tiring to tell everyone the same thing over and over again anytime they saw my arm in a sling- strangers and people I barely knew. Other things affected me as well. I couldn’t write quickly but had to do written work to replace not being able to participate in PE class, I couldn’t put up my own hair. It would’ve made me feel normal, but I couldn’t do it. I had nightmares and couldn’t sleep at night, and driving school was filled with stress induced nightmares to add onto my trauma ones- by the time I started Drivers Ed most of the trauma from the car crash was lessened, but not all of it.

I know that personally there are things I could work on when I drive. I have so much anxiety while doing so that it’s hard to get up to the speed limit sometimes, which is incredibly dangerous, and I feel like I’m going to cry when I drive for long periods of time. It’s difficult to overcome anxieties surrounding driving, and I’d say they’re worse than reckless driving because you’re aware of what needs to be fixed, you just can’t make yourself fix it. Drivers Ed helps kids like me as well as kids who need direction for other reasons with driving.