When my parents first suggested driver's education, I thought it was the stupidest thing ever and pointless. We sat in a room and watched a bunch of videos of teenagers doing dumb things that get them killed, and the whole time I would just think “surely nobody actually does any of this stuff?”. Now I've been driving for a little over a year, and very quickly learned that people do in fact do all those things- texting and driving, drinking and driving, playing music at full volume, going 20+ over the speed limit, etc. Many people think driver's education is just teaching you how to drive, which is also true, but they also teach you about all the distractions that you or other people might face and the dangers of them. Drivers ed helped me be able to identify the distractions, and also helped with peer pressure.
I have many friends who race in parking lots and on streets, and blast music, which I admittedly felt like I had to do to fit in. There's also multiple people on the internet who encourage new drivers to drive recklessly- I genuinely had someone tell me I was going to be killed for going the speed limit or only 5 mph over, which is insane to me. Teenagers are so prone to peer pressure, not even just with driving. Many statistics show that if your friends are all doing something, you're going to be more likely to also participate in it.href
I think another reason why drivers education is important is the fact that a lot of parents or older people have adopted habits that aren't safe. This is an issue if they're the ones teaching the teenagers how to drive, which is really the only other option rather than drivers ed. I know in my experience, when I had my permit, my mother was always the one in the car with me. She would yell at me, or be over dramatic about things I would do, or start arguments while I was driving which made my driving more reckless, and only made me more scared to drive. I've heard of this being the case for a lot of people, which leads to kids also ignoring the permit rules for having an adult in the car. At school, many kids would use the school's parking lot and not be able to get the parking permits due to the fact they only had their permit. My biggest experience with this case was September of 2024, a 15 year old kid, who only had his permit, was out at midnight and ended up jumping our curb and hitting my dad's truck, totaling his own car and damaging the truck and our yard. People don't realize that children don't know how to drive safely. Being able to operate a vehicle and get from one place to another does not equate to being able to drive.
My mother would always talk about how drivers ed was required in school when she was in high school. I believe we should have that be the case again. There's a lot of parents who would want to put their kids in driver's ed but physically can't afford it as it's insanely expensive. Although many kids probably wouldn't care or listen, it would at least increase the amount of kids who know basic safety and know how to avoid distractions, and hopefully decrease the amount of deaths. It sucks that the only reason some people can't educate themselves on safe driving from professionals is because they can't afford it.
Even if there's no way we can include drivers ed into the school curriculum again, there's many things that both the parents and the kids themselves can do to help make the roads safer. Parents can be more aware of what their kids are doing, be more disciplinary about reckless driving, and stop allowing their drivers to do stupid things on the roads. So many parents allow and encourage their children to drive recklessly and that is a huge problem.
Another way we could make the roads safer in general is by simply spreading awareness. We may never be able to make driver education accessible to everybody, but what we can do is make people aware of the issues on the road regarding not just teenagers, but everybody. Parents can educate their children more about the dangers before they start driving. Police can be more strict about reckless driving, especially when they can see it's a teenager. People can post things online to educate the world. It might take a bit, but eventually everybody could learn and understand the importance of safe driving and the importance of drivers education.