One night at 4 in the morning I was jolted awake by the sound of my parents yelling and screaming into their phones.Someone our family knew closely got into a horrific accident that night—I will call her Madison. . Madison was scared and tried to mask off her fear that it was just a flat tire but by the tone of her voice we could tell that it was much more than just that. We rushed through the dark streets until we got there and found how crippled the car really was. As we approached, it seemed like it was a horror situation that I saw out of a cop show. In slow motion the red and blue flickering lights illuminated the entire intersection. The car was driven into the ditch, had a whole tire that rolled away separately from the car, with many dents and scratches throughout the car. I could smell the smoke and grassy scent that the car had produced with the ground as it slid down the slope. This was an event that kept me up and that I would never forget.

Seeing an accident as severe as this in real life rather than in just another cop show really opened my eyes on how serious driving actually is. It was a miracle really that Madison did not get severely injured. It was almost as if there was a deity figure looking over me and everyone in my inner circle giving us a warning by letting us use this instance as an opportunity to learn from the mistakes that Madison made. So I took this event to actually learn from other people’s mistakes instead of creating my own. While many other peers my age might skim through the driving school modules really quickly, I decided to actually read and watch through it so I could learn all the precautions that I would need to know.

Driving education is a vital part of society. The majority of people around the world will go through driving school as just another stepping stone in life. Among these people, over half of them are just teenagers excited to start driving to just have the thrill of the ride or to finally have the freedom to drive themselves wherever. However, all these positives come with risks. Risks of running over an animal or someone, crashing into someone, someone crashing into you, or you smashing your car into a tree. There are endless negative possibilities that could happen. This is the reason why driving education is so important. You want as many people with the knowledge of all different types of things from knowing what traffic signs mean to having an intuition that someone else might be texting or drunk driving. Not every accident you will be in will be your fault. Some other people might drive recklessly by speeding or being distracted. This is why it is important that education emphasizes defensive driving, which is a crucial ability that a lot of people should learn. Defensive driving is where people are driving cautiously and are aware of their surroundings. They would be able to react quickly to imprudent driving from others. This simple action that can be performed by many would greatly reduce rates of accidents and deaths from crashes. Everyone makes a mistake here and there and it is on us to try and be aware of this and prevent these mishaps from happening.

Parents always talk about how kids are inexperienced and just have not had enough time driving on the road so they will be distracted from the road ahead of them. And while most of this might be true it is not always. Just because someone is inexperienced does not make them irresponsible. All that matters is the mindset you have as you go into driving. Just like anything you do in life you will succeed with the right mindset. If you set your mind to something and work hard, either mentally or physically, you can achieve that goal. Same thing with driving, if you have the mentality of taking driving seriously and safely because you know the extreme consequences that could happen if you are preoccupied with something else.

Some teens also might want to seem cool while driving to show off to their friends. They might try and do things that they would not normally do like speed, run red lights, all while racing, pretending like traffic laws do not exist for them in that short time span. This dramatically increases crash rates especially for teens that had just started to drive with insurance rates through the roof. All these teens have to do is really just to say no. I know that is easier said than done but that is really the way to get other people to respect your decision to drive safely and not cause a risk with chances of you and others getting injured or even killed.

Driving may feel like an insignificant problem compared to drugs and social media issues. However, an innocent activity like driving can turn into a deadly problem—literally. In my one and a half years of driving I have made plenty of mistakes as I drove. But with these mistakes I have seen from Madison and myself I try to grow from them. I realize that I am driving a one of a kind machine that has the ability to hurt and kill many others. So, I have to take precautions and try to use my intuition to know when the risk outweighs the reward.