Drives With a 14 Year Old

“What am I doing?” “Why did I agree to this?” “I am so never doing this again.” These thoughts travel through my mind. I am sitting in the passenger seat with my 14 year old sister in the driver’s, as we with painstaking slowness turn about a 10 minute drive into a 20 minute driving lesson to reach our destination. As the older sister, I do not feel qualified for this, but she needs the practice and I happened to be the only one at home, suspiciously. It’s drives with my younger sister when I am the most alert on the road. When I am by myself, driving has become second nature, a mere fact of transportation from one point to another. But when that simple certainty of a successful trip is put into question by the uncertainty of my sister’s inexperience on the road, my survival instincts are hyper-focused. Maybe it’s the lack of control from not being behind the wheel, or perhaps the jerkiness from my sister’s foot not really understanding the flow of the brakes that makes me wonder if my car is actually automatic, but in any case I am reminded of just how little control I have and how much choosing to be out on the roads is a surrender of control in many ways. 

There are many statistics on the dangers of driving. Although these statistics used to be shocking, I think a lot of people have become desensitized to them or maybe have a false mindset of believing something like that would never happen to them. These statistics, although they are very real and very sad, have not used the fear factor intended to enact change in drivers on the road. Most drivers take risks on the road and give themselves too much credit for their control over the situation. This is especially the case with the prevalence of texting and social media today. Most people do not go a drive without checking their phone, either while driving or at a stop light. A common misconception is that the new hands-free talking option through bluetooth is less distracting to use while driving and totally safe. However, this is not the case. While it is true that hands-free talking is safer than texting because the driver is keeping their eyes on the road, it is not so much about the driver using their hands but the resources of their mind. Talking to someone on the phone does still take away resources your mind needs to perform the operation of driving. And while in most circumstances where the driving conditions are normal, hands-free talking taking up resources necessary to drive would not be life-threatening, in just a flash the driving conditions can drastically and fatally change. This is just one example of driving facts of which drivers need to be made aware. Just as with hands-free talking, there are many misconceptions about driving safely which puts everyone in danger on the road. This is why driver education is so crucial, because although most people have this false sense of security, the statistics show this sense is misplaced. 

Driver education could take place in many forms, but it is necessary to keep people safe the best as possible. The way it works today, kids learn how to drive from their parents, maybe take a drivers ed. class, and then take the test to get their license. After that there are no more requirements to be on the road other than occasionally renewing their license. I would argue that most people do not remember what was on their driver’s license test and have naturally over the years reinforced false ideas of the rules of driving from an inability to remember the actual rule and going with what makes the most sense. I believe there needs to be more than a renewal of licensure. Maybe along with this, a refresher safety video along with a brief assessment could be taken to remind drivers of how to drive safely. 

As a young adult, I would say that the main culprits of driver recklessness is young adults. It is so easy for young adults to get excited being in the car together and lead to distracting the driver. From loud music, to shouting, to showing the driver images on the phone, there is a lot the driver of that car would have to ignore in order to drive safely. And most of the time, the young adult driver does not want to ignore these stimuli. As a young adult and a proponent of driver safety, I have been diligent about reducing distracting stimuli for my friends who are driving and also not being afraid to stand up against the distractions of my passengers when I am the one behind the wheel. It took driving with my younger sister to realize just how much attention goes into driving, and how I have taken that for granted since I have become an “experienced driver.” But the truth is, no one will ever be able to predict the situations that will happen on the road, and some of those situations are deadly. So it is extremely important to be more educated on driver safety..