DMV Education

Driving is one of the privileges given to kids when they turn 16 in the United States, however cars are very deadly when not used safe and when not taking the proper precautions or preventing distractions.

The importance of driving education is to avoid ignorance. A lot of times, what we do not know can kill us. This is a very famous saying but I believe that it is very important in this topic because just as school are teaching its students about sex education and how to be safe, it is also important to teach students about the benefits and dangers of driving. In schools, we learn about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, not exercising enough, and not taking care of our finances, but is rare that we are taught and warned about the dangers of driving. Like these other topics, driving will be in our lives until the end, so the importance of this should also be as important as any other. Even though it is legal that once an individual turns 16 they can drive, it should be treated as a privilege and should have stricter rules.

The steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving is prevention and also education. The prevention work that can be done is educating the students in schools. They need to know that this privilege can take a turn for the worse if one is not careful. This can be in forms of having survivors or families of victims talk to these students. No one can portray and bring the emotion of the effect of death my driving unless the families of the victims talk to them. The education proponent is to force the same rules throughout all 50 states. One example of this is the fact that in MO, when I had to take my driver’s test, I had to pass the written permit test and then take the driver’s test. However, the state that I reside in KS, some kids and avoid the whole process if they show proof of taking a driver’s education class and learning to drive with an instructor. Both these methods could be useful, but the fact that they are different causes a discrepancy in the level of skill expected for a driver before taking the test. Combining these two methods could be beneficial but for a system to improve, the rules, regulations, and training need to be the same. In order to test if a driver knows the rules, they must pass the permit test. This makes sense because no one a then tell law informant officers that they were uninformed of the rules. Taking driver’s education is also important because to learn something effectively, it should be taught like how any other subject is taught at school, at a consistent and similar ways so that everyone is getting the same information and is working actively in the same way.

I have not experienced being in a car accident, but I have witnessed the effects of accidents on friends around me. There is physical, emotional and mental pain due to the fact that our society is built on transportation, so getting over the fear and worry about getting hit again has to be a battle. With friends that have had to get medical treatment to help recover from injuries consistent with a car crash, one can see the pain and the suffering that the body has to go through in order to heal. Mental stress also comes with physical recovery and due to the fact that some of the perpetrators of the accidents either did not have insurance or did not have a license causes more legal work to be done can cause distress and cause the process of getting justice to be longer and more strenuous.

Steps that can be taken to ensure that the roads are safer and that others become better drivers is consistency and moving the date up. I believe that 18 should be the legal age to drive because that can give kids more time to practice. I also believe that we should change the conditions of obtaining and driving on a permit. I believe that driver’s education should be mandatory and a certain score should be obtained before taking the test. When getting the permit, permit drivers can only drive if they are able to drive with a driver older than 25 and that period of time should be over a year. This way, you can really focus and learn to drive correctly without feeling the pressure of getting a certain number of hours in a specific amount of time. Something less drastic of a change should be the education in schools and making sure that kids are learning about driving and it’s dangers in high school.

One thing that I would like to add is that when traveling around the world, I like to ask different people about the different privileges that young people, like myself, have and the different methods and laws that are put in place. Driving is a good example because this past summer I went to Spain and France to study abroad and visit family. I found out that driving is allowed for individuals that are at least 18 years old and that one has to pay in order to take the permit test, pay in order to take the driver’s test, have to submit a certain amount of driving hours. In France, my parents informed me that they needed to know how to parallel park in three different types of roads and had to learn how to drive manual. And to top this off, every time that one fails, they have to start over the process and pay again. Now, this is a little bit more over extensive compared to the changes that I have discussed, but it is to show the seriousness that the government has put on driving and that each step is as important as the next. This is a good example to see the changes that can be made in the United States.