A teen’s perspective on safe driving

While I personally have never experienced a car accident, I have had plenty of encounters with reckless and unsafe drivers. Countless times have I seen red lights run through, double solid lines crossed, drivers driving down the wrong side of the street, speedy turns made without the use of the brakes, texting and driving, 4-6 teenage friends driving in one car, cars driving by smelling strongly of CBD, and the list goes on. While none of these issues have caused an accident which I have experienced, they have caused many unnecessarily close calls, and these and other factors are ultimately responsible for accidents that I have not experienced. It is important therefore, that drivers, especially new ones, become educated on the many rules of the road, as well as laws regarding safe motor vehicle operation. Providing a comprehensive education of driver’s education and safety would serve to the benefit of society, as younger drivers would be better informed on the dangers and associated risks of reckless driving, and as these younger drivers mature, they would have a strong foundation of knowledge combined with experience to facilitate continuous good decision making. This, in turn, would allow for larger scale implementation of safe-driving practice and therefore a safer society, where the chance of accidental property damage, injury, or death would be greatly reduced.

How could we achieve safer driving amongst new drivers? My proposed solution is one that may not be popular among new drivers, parents, or states, but it is one I fundamentally believe would reduce the number of accidents caused by new drivers in the U.S. In order to release safer young drivers into society, I believe the driver’s education system must be much more challenging to complete. Unlike some of the essays I was reading, my locality (and probably state) requires that all 10th grade students take driver’s education as a course on their high school transcript. While this is definitely effective in reducing the number of accidents caused by young drivers as compared with those that were not properly educated on driving and driver’s safety (I have not seen or heard of teenage accidents and tragedies like I have read of in some other essays where driver’s education is not a mandatory course), I feel it is not the most effective approach at producing safe drivers. By making the class harder to complete, students will be required to pay more attention, try harder, and thus, take driving and driving safety more seriously. Additionally, a harder course could mean more course content is covered. For example, I never learned of the importance of braking before a turn or rules governing the use of a roundabout. Inclusion of more course content would mean that drivers are better informed about the rules of the road and vehicle operation so that they can make better decisions when it comes time to put principle into practice. If the government really got on board with this initiative, then driving simulators could be implemented into schools. This would allow for one on one mentoring in a safe and controlled environment. This could prove beneficial, as deliberate practice and corrective validation are consistently shown as two of the most effective ways to achieve learning mastery. Implementation of such simulators, therefore, would be beneficial for the development of young and safe drivers, as drivers would gain valuable driving experience in a safe environment and mentors would be teachers rather than family members. The presence of teachers as mentors rather than parents would ensure that the new driver is generally overall better equipped to drive, as teachers tend to be less biased in assessing student driving readiness than parents. All of these protocols could prove beneficial in reducing the number of new driver-caused accidents from an education standpoint, but what about actually driving behind the wheel?

Studies consistently show that young drivers are more impulsive and more willing to take risks than their older counterparts. Personally, I feel like I was ill prepared to handle driving out on the road based on what I had been taught in driver’s education. As a result, I feel as though the course probably does not do the best job preparing other drivers for driving on the road either. While a driving simulator would definitely help improve the situation, as previously suggested, the reality is that most schools would not have access to such technology. As a result, new drivers need a way to not only apply the knowledge they learned in driver’s education, but they also need a way to attain valuable safe driving experience. This can be accomplished with requirements for driving with licensed professionals. My driving instructor personally did not do much to teach me, I was told that I was already a really good driver, which came as a surprise to me. Reflecting on the experience however, I have come to realize that I am a much more patient driver than many people in my age group. I do not speed, I do not accelerate or decelerate rapidly, I am constantly checking my mirrors, I change lanes at the earliest convenience rather than last minute, and I am patient when yielding. I realize that these qualities have made me a safer driver than my peers, but they are often not instilled in new drivers like they should be. This is why I believe that new drivers should have more experience with licensed driving instructors, as they are more likely to stress the importance of these fundamental concepts of safe driving than parents or other unofficial instructors. Executing patience while driving, therefore, is a practice I believe would be the most effective in keeping current drivers safe and in developing new drivers with safe driving habits.