The Best Education is Found in Experience

My graduating class has 63 students in it. The population of Our Town is 1,535, including the farms in the surrounding area. We have one major intersection right in the middle of town, known simply as, “The Fiveway,” because of the five roads that converge there. But Our Town is too small to have a stop light of any kind. The old people that grew up in Our Town frequently reminisce about all of the close calls that they witnessed, or were a part of, at The Fiveway. Furthermore, new stories are constantly emerging among the young and old alike, as more and more close calls take place. But on occasion, the incident will be more than just a “close call”.

As we came upon the intersection, my brother activated his turn signal. There was a car at two of the stop signs across from us, and another car coming from the other direction. The road we were turning on was empty. Without thinking, my brother pulled into the intersection, unaware of what to do in the case of oncoming traffic when neither of us had a stop sign. We collided. The airbags exploded in our faces, smoke streamed into our lungs, and I could hear people talking all around me. I knew the truck we hit too. I looked at him. He looked at me. He was our neighbor, and also the father of one of my close friends. I sat in the car. Mrs. H, a teacher at the elementary school, happened to be behind us and ran up to the driver’s side door. She told us both that everything was fine and that we just needed to stay seated. Mrs. B, another teacher at the elementary school, was right behind her calling our parents. I looked out the passenger side window. I noticed that one of my friends was running to our car. He got to my window and talked to me and made sure we were ok. The smoke surrounded us and made everything blurry. My mom showed up two minutes later, as she worked at the elementary school down the road. She told us to get out of the car and walk over to the bench in front of DJs Pilgrim Market. Some friends from school who happened to be on the corner where everything happened were waiting there, watching everything unfold. Soon they surrounded me and my brother and began taking care of us both. A FedEx driver came up and started asking us questions and doing tests on us to see if we had concussions; I had never seen the guy, but later he explained to us that he was just hired to be the fire chief in Our Town, starting in January. The ambulance showed up next, and the EMTs that got out were familiar faces as well. They both had kids in the high school.

My brother had gone through the drivers education program. However, he did not know all of the rules very well, as he had little experience in the driver’s seat. Though DriversEd taught him a lot and taught him well, he was still inexperienced, and he was driving through a complicated area. Even though DriversEd is an amazing step in the right direction towards educating young drivers on the rules of the road, drivers like my brother can only improve their driving abilities and skills through practicing. This practice should take place at low speeds and in low stress scenarios to reduce the number of deaths. Difficult scenarios should be introduced slowly. Though even with this practice, I would recommend everyone steer clear of five-way intersections, and I would advise city planners to never put them in towns again.

To become a better and safer driver myself, I strive to pay as much attention as I can to what is going on around me. I try to only change the radio in places that are not busy or congested, or I let the person in the passenger seat work the controls inside the car. My main focus is on keeping the car and the passengers safe.

The drivers education program is a program that benefits young drivers and old drivers alike. It provides knowledge for the young, and comfort for the old, knowing that new drivers hit the road with a base-line education of how to drive. Despite the fact that accidents still happen and people still die because of them, Drivers Education helps keep the number of accidents and deaths lower than they would be otherwise.