Why an Educated Driver is a Good Driver Why is a educated river important? An educated driver is important because without knowledge of the road there is no sense of safety and security for those who are around you. When I was thirteen years old my mother was sandwiched by two cars due to the person driving behind her texting on their phone. Due to such a fixable mistake my mother had to endure surgery and several months of physical therapy, and even after that was all over there was the fear of getting back out onto the road. In the past few years cell phones have been the reason 1.6 million accidents have occurred. This means that 1 in 4 accidents was caused by cell phones or electronics. Every day, almost 30 people die in the US due to drinking and driving, which adds up to about eleven thousand a year, and this accounts for about 28 percent of driving related deaths. These numbers have gone down over the years but are still very clearly serious problems, but why are people doing these things with the possible repercussions? The answer is uneducated drivers. People do not understand that you can be given tickets, fines, arrested, or worst of all killed; there is a simple fix to all of it, and that is education at an early age. Teenagers learn about driver safety in high school. However I think that it should be mandatory to take the drivers ed class. Lots of kids now do not take the time to actually study for their permit test so they will fail 3 or more times and since you can keep taking it thy can just keep guessing and never actually learn. They will then turn sixteen and some are just good at driving and others just barely pass or fail their test. If people take these classes they will also learn about the dangers of drinking and driving and what effect it can have on not only you, but other families and friends. Not to mention possible jail time or fines. For Missouri first time offense comes with a $500 fine and/or six months of jail, and the more times you repeat the worse it gets. If you accidently kill someone drunk driving it’s three to ten years. These scenarios are sound bad but there are extremely easy fixes to these. Wait to get home to text or answer a call; if it is important pull over and answer. Start kids at a young age teaching driver safety and the consequences of an uneducated driver. For drinking and driving simply call an uber or a friend. There is no reason you should ever drive drunk; it is simply not worth your life or the other drivers around you. If every driver would just take a moment to stop and think, is it worth it to send this text or drive home after drinking, they’d hopefully realize that it is and save lives and prevents those everyday accidents we have normalized.