In The Driver’s Seat

I recently got my driver’s license in the summer of last year, and I knew immediately that I wanted to take driving courses because I felt that receiving practice, advice, and training from an opinion outside my close family would be beneficial to me. I am so glad that I took the course because I learned a lot of things from my teachers that I wouldn’t have learned from my mom and grandparents. My mom, for example, can’t parallel park very well, but my teacher says that I am a natural at it after attempting it a few times. The teacher also made me feel safe and relaxed while in the driver’s seat, and I’m forever grateful for that.

There are a lot of rules I have set in place to prevent distracted driving. First of all, and probably the most needed of all in today’s world, is that I put my phone away in a little cubby before I start driving. If I plan to listen to music, I set it up before I turn the car on or before I pull out. I also put on my seatbelt before turning on the car to make sure I don’t forget. I do everything I can to lower the need to focus on anything other than driving before I start the actual driving itself and it’s made me feel a lot more confident in my driving skills to this day.

Last year on Election Day, I went practice driving with my grandfather and got into a four car collision. It was bumper to bumper traffic because of construction and the electric company working on the same two-lane highway. The car two ahead of me suddenly stopped to make a left, causing the brand new white pickup truck to brake suddenly, which led to me to brake quickly. Not even two milliseconds after we reached a complete stop, a car slammed right into my rear end, causing my car to hit the pickup which caused the pickup to hit the car that was turning. My grandfather told me later that he saw the offending car flying down behind us and thought that there was no way it was going to stop in time. The man in the white pickup truck reported that while the crash sounded like a bomb going off, he did not hear the squeal of brakes at all meaning that the woman in the offending car never hit her brakes and hit me straight on. It was an experience that left me shaken, and I’m thankful that nobody got hurt. Unfortunately, my grandfather’s car was totaled and he had to get a new one.

However, this wasn’t the only collision I experienced. Over Christmas break, I had to go visit my father, Jason, for a week. Jason is not a safe driver, despite claiming to have 30 years of experience. This was evident over the break when we were moving through a parking lot to leave Topgolf. I was sitting in the passenger seat, looking around because I was bored and I had nothing to do. I noticed a truck with his backup lights on and he was starting to pull out. I also noticed Jason fiddling with his phone on the phone stand and not paying attention. There was plenty of time for him to brake and avoid a collision, but alas since he was not paying attention, we got backed into which led to a huge argument where I was saying that if he had not been on his phone and paying attention, we wouldn’t have been hit and him saying that he had 30 years of experience, I was a new driver so I knew nothing, and that he had the right of way which is correct, yes; however, crazy drivers don’t care about the right of way. My grandfather always taught me that you have to watch out for the other guy and that’s what Jason was not doing. It’s also called defensive driving, which he did not do. Of course, when he got the police report that he was in the right, where I’m sure he decided to leave out the detail of being on his phone along with the fact that he told me not to say anything to the cop because he knew I was right, he couldn’t help but rub it in my face that he was right and I was wrong and it was proven right there on paper. He also mentioned that incidents like this happen to him once a year and can’t be helped. I can’t help but wonder why getting into an accident is such a common occurrence for him yet my mother hasn’t gotten into an accident since she was in college. One thing is for sure; I will never take driving lessons or tips from Jason.

All in all, there are many steps new drivers can take to prevent distracted driving and grow their skills like taking driver’s ed, lowering distractions as much as possible, and knowing the skills of the person they’re taking lessons from to make sure they aren’t learning the wrong things. I wholeheartedly believe that if more drivers put these practices into place, there would be less deaths caused by accidents and non-fatal accidents overall.