Driver Education Initiative Award: In the Driver’s Seat

As a 17-year-old, you hear about the dangers of driving constantly, and it seems almost repetitive, but when a dear family friend was in a horrible accident in 2018, it all made sense. You hear “Don’t drive under any influence.” or “Always keep up inspections.” even “If you’re too tired to drive, try and fix that.” Of course, you’d think or at least hope that this would appear to be common sense, but alas, it is not. The amount of death purely because of automobiles is staggering. An average of 46,000 Americans die each year due to car accidents, and the majority of those are teenagers. Teenagers are three times more likely to get in a car accident than someone over twenty. This is a huge problem, and that’s why as I grew older, I understood more why the adults in my life would always tell me to drive safely.

One of the reasons why I care so much for driver safety is because of an accident with a man I call my uncle because of how close our families were. I recently moved to Texas but am from Utah. In 2018, we were at home when my mom got a call from my “aunt” her best friend, Lisa. Lisa was in tears saying Jason was in the hospital from an accident. What had happened was a 15-year-old took her parent’s car out on a joyride, was heading towards the red light at the busiest intersection in our old town and was on her phone. Jason was on his motorcycle that he cherished more than anything. He had the green light to turn and as he was making his way over the girl, who was going quite fast, ran the red light and hit Jason. He flew across the intersection and his beloved motorcycle was destroyed. The damage that girl caused may not have been on purpose, but Jason’s life was forever changed. After the accident, he had to go through months of physical therapy to walk again, the medical bills were insane for the family. They went through so much just because a teen wanted to drive and be on her phone. The trauma Jason went through from that and the girl knowing she could have killed someone all could have been avoided if she had just waited for an adult to be in the car with her, or even if she wasn’t on her phone and was paying attention to the light.

After the accident, I swore I’d do my part to make sure something like that wouldn’t happen to someone close to me ever again.Every time I’m in the car with a friend or family member, I make sure every seat belt is on, and everyone has them on correctly. It’s become a habit especially when I drive. I don’t have my license yet, so I always bring my permit and never drive without my mom or dad in the car. But I do know once I get my license, I am going to have my insurance covered so that if an accident does ever occur, if I’m responsible the family won’t go through so much debt trouble like Jason’s family did. The car is always going to be legal on the road, getting the inspections needed to be done and always to be on top of my car maintenance.

One of the biggest distractions in a car is our phones, so thankfully I will be using the driving feature on mine. I always have it on Do Not Disturb when I am driving and if I am using a GPS, I always have it set before I leave, and have it mounted, and volume turned up, so I don’t use it. But that’s what I do, what I do to help my friends and family to also stay safe, I always remind them not to get on their phone because of the danger it is and will take their phone to do their texting or music change that they may request. Driving is a privilege, and it should never be taken for granted. Too many lives are lost because of careless driving and mistakes that could have been avoided. Of course, even if you follow every rule, there will be those who do not, so you must be the change, the example. You must be the one to be safe and on top of everything. Safe driving starts with you, and it starts with me.