The
Deadly Peril of Disobedience
By
Elizabeth Rogers

Over
the course of history, people have always acknowledged the importance
of education. From civilizations as early as the Mesopotamians and
the Mayans, society has acknowledged that education is a fundamental
basis of society. For example, over the centuries, we have created a
way to prevent unnecessary death through the training and education
of doctors. Governments have created a process that involves years of
training and experience before one can even become a practicing
doctor in order to prevent these doctors from causing unnecessary
deaths caused by a lack of education. This idea of enough education
to ensure that people do not die is also applicable to driver’s
education. This principle should be even more heavily enforced in
this situation as there is only 1 million doctors practicing in the
United States, but there are 225 million drivers. So, if we place
such heavy emphasis on making sure our medical professionals are
properly trained, it would make sense that drivers ed is one of
the top priorities in our country. Every year, 34,000 people die
because of driving related accidents, a number that is considerably
high since every single one of those deaths were unnecessary. This
number could be easily lowered by making sure that every single
driver receives enough education about the risks of driving and
behaviors to avoid while driving.  I believe that the ancient
writer Sophocles said it best, that “There is no more deadly peril
than disobedience”, meaning that when most people die, it is
usually since someone was not following the rules. This is relevant
because all car accidents are caused by someone not following the
rules of the road. Thus, a logical response to this high number of
deaths is to highlight the importance of drivers ed early to
our country’s young and blossoming drivers in order to protect
them from making the mistakes that cause either take their own lives
or the lives of people around them.