The majority of people in America use cars or motorcycles for transportation. And with that comes the inherent risk of there being an accidental death caused by circumstances that are normally preventable. A quick search on Google tells us that 18,720 people have been killed in the first half of 2024. It goes on to state that this is a decrease of 3.2% so it's an improvement from the last year, but I want to believe that we can do better than this. I’ll talk about my ideas for improving the training the soon-to-be drivers will receive in their classes and my personal experience later on with drivers that nearly cost me my life several times.

People generally get their initial training from their high school. It was the first place that I received any sort of official teaching about how to drive on the road. Honestly, I think the class covered a lot of crucial details that drivers will find useful. Understanding who goes first when two people get to a stop sign. What all the different signs mean, what to look out for on the road, and even giving behind-the-wheel teaching in most cases. It’s a great starting point for drivers. It gives them the basic abilities to make rational and educated decisions to help prevent panic that could lead to accidental death inside and outside the car.

But it is also generally the end of the driver learning to be behind the wheel as well. In my class, a lot of it was focused on the teaching part of driving from the classroom. I believe around ¼ of the class was used to have the students drive on the practice course. I’m not saying that the classroom portion was bad, but that the practice course time should be increased. I can think of two ways to accomplish this. The first one is to increase the class time for students. This would mostly only work for seniors as they generally don’t need to have a fully booked schedule for their final year. The second is to require more driving hours with the driver instructor(s). I believe I was only required to be on the practice range for 20 hours and honestly, I don’t think it was enough time for me to be confident in my street driving abilities. Increasing the class by 10 more hours would benefit the students greatly. Especially if at least 1 of those hours was spent one-on-one with the instructor driving with the student observing how they handle certain situations and having the teacher explain his thought process as he drove. This would increase the student's confidence and understanding of how actual roads work with traffic.

I also came to understand the dangers that cars pose to others with improper driving. One time was a driver with the headlights completely off. I assume they were a teen based on his looks and by that logic most likely new to driving. It was a small black car at night which made it impossible for me to see. Thankfully I stopped in time when he got closer and he passed without incident. I’ve also been hit by a car. It was a small hit. The dude didn’t see me on my bike drove into me and immediately braked after. Luckily my bike absorbed the impact instead of me so I was only mildly bruised, but it did give me a sense of how much weight goes behind a car when it hits you. From both of these experiences, I would say that the first guy just needed better teaching on the inside control of cars. Car brands all have things different on the inside, but getting a rough idea of what symbol means what could help the driver understand that his lights were off. The second driver suffered from what I see a lot when biking. They would only look in the opposite direction of where they wanted to go. Say they wanted to turn right out of a parking lot. A lot of people will only look to their left, see that it is clear, and then go. I would make looking both directions more enforced in class, with the teacher stressing how important it is to look both ways, like when attempting to walk across a street.


This paper is a reflection of my experiences with drivers and potential solutions that I think would benefit everyone. Most people have the basics of driving down. But will take shortcuts in procedures that increase the danger level of being next to them, like not using turn signals and looking only one way on a road. If teachers were given more time with their students both in class and one-on-one I think it would go a long way in helping them better understand how to safely drive without endangering the lives of others on the road. To the ones reading this paper, thank you, and drive safely.