The Importance of Safe Driving

I have only had my driver’s license for a little under a year now, but I have had a huge responsibility placed on me since I got it. I drive my mom and my little sister to school every day, and while I am in the driver’s seat, I am extremely aware that I have the fate of three souls on my hands as I drive. Thankfully, I took a teens’ drivers’ education course, Aceable, in order to be fully equipped and educated to drive. 

I am very lucky in that I have never had to have personally experienced trauma caused by a major car crash. However, there are many people who drive carelessly and recklessly. Driver education can prevent such car accidents. Like any type of education, drivers’ courses help the future driver to understand all the traffic laws and why they are set in place. It is not enough to just know what the laws are but also to comprehend the potential threats that the laws avoid by being followed. I had to watch a lot of videos on my drivers’ education course that had to do with teenagers and adults alike breaking the law while driving. Their stories were so tearjerking that I had to sit in my room for a while, just thinking about the lives that were so deeply impacted by such careless driving. I just know that if everyone who drives had seen the videos that I had to watch, they would not be so hasty in driving as they might be already. 

I have had to witness so many people rushing to get to work each morning, and honestly, there was a time when I first started driving that I also would wave off the speed limit. One morning, my little sister was running late to school and she told me, “I’m not worried that I’ll get there late because you always drive so fast”. At first, I laughed, but then I realized, my sister is only in high school and my speeding could potentially cause her to be scarred for life or no longer on this planet. From that day one, I decided to always pay attention to the speed limit, regardless if I was running late or not. I would much rather arrive at my destination safely and late, than not at all. Some steps that I have taken in order to adopt this new perspective on the responsibility of being a driver is to take a good look at all of your passengers. Typically, one is driving people they love, so why risk their lives? As well as this, this may seem a little unorthodox but I also look at the people around me as I drive. Although I do not know them and I may never see them again, they all have a separate life they are leading, they have people at home waiting for them to arrive at the end of the day. Why should my reckless driving affect these people’s complex and beautiful lives?

Unfortunately, one of the reasons I have recognized the importance of safe driving is because my parents tend to be more careless when on the road. There have been countless times when my parents are driving and they are looking at their phone. I have caught my parents even looking at Facebook or Instagram while at stoplights. This has always annoyed me as they always criticize my driving skills and assume that I am not a responsible driver. Even when I was not yet old enough to drive and witnessed my parents’ driving habits, I was able to realize that they were being irresponsible. I would promise myself that I would never let myself drive so distractedly. That promise has stuck through, all these years later. 

As an American society, we drive a lot, so  we take this huge responsibility for granted. We consider such an intricate part of our lives, that we later on start to do it mindlessly, out of habit. On the contrary, because we need to drive everywhere all the time, everyone is on the road, all the time, we need to drive with each others’ souls in mind. Just because driving has become such a habit, that does not mean that we should forget about the social responsibility that all drivers carry when getting behind the wheel. We tend to minimize our responsibility, but in reality, we must use our voice to remind ourselves that driving carefully and responsibly is necessary.