The Privilege of Driving

A pivotal moment in every person’s life is learning how to drive. It gives you a sense of new-found freedom, the ability to go wherever they please and to not rely on others for a ride. However this is not the core reason our society has driver’s ed programs. Being taught to drive is a privilege that can come with many different risks. The National Safety Council reports that in 2022 there were 5,339 car crashes that ended up with a teenager (ages 15-20) deceased in America alone. This number represents somebody’s sister, brother, child, partner, and someone’s friend. Car accidents are scary enough but as a teenager the risk is even greater. The different driver’s education programs specifically work to reduce the number of teen casualties within car crashes. These programs are very beneficial because it works to educate teen drivers on different road laws, potential risks, and how to prepare yourself to be a safe driver. Driver’s education courses started becoming popular in the early 1900’s, although cars became popular around 1896. Now there aren’t many statistics on crashes for teens at this time, however an article written by The Detroit News states that in Detroit in 1917 there were 65,000 cars on the road. This ended up with 7,171 crashes and 168 deaths during these accidents. This statistic is only for one city and many crashes went unreported, however this goes to show just how dangerous driving really is. There wasn’t any driver’s education course at this time, but we can see how this could’ve helped these early drivers.

Stopping vehicular deaths within teens starts with their first lesson of driver’s education. When children are taught the severity of the responsibility that comes with driving, it helps to show them how serious it is. Driving is something to be taken seriously and it requires concentration. I’ve been lucky enough to never experience a car accident personally. However in my hometown there was a huge car accident recently. It happened around 5 a.m. when my dad was on his way to work. A 16 year old girl was out driving and didn’t see a biker who was on his way to his job. She hit him head on and he ended up under her huge SUV. It was very apparent that this man died on impact and was only in his early 30’s. This was a very tragic accident that affected our whole community. One lesson that can be learned from this, is that driver’s ed needs to be taken seriously. While driving can be very fun, it is highly dangerous for all on the road.

One thing that could be implemented to increase road safety is a mandatory refresher class every ten years after getting your driver’s license. This may be very repetitive but as people grow older so does their memory skills. If we implemented a refresher course every ten years, that could promote the learning of new road rules, or just practicing skills. If ten years wasn’t obtainable, they could require the course in order to renew your license. That would make sure everyone was actually completing the refresher course because they couldn’t renew their license to drive. I also think that requiring a secondary driving test once a driver hits a certain year would be helpful. There are often car accidents with older citizens where they are driving severely under the speed limit. If there was a study done on when their memory starts to decline, we could use that age range and require a mandatory driving test. This would allow the older citizens to test their driving skills to make sure they are still equipped to drive safely. Lastly when someone commits a traffic violation of any kind I think that making them take a course to learn why that is not allowed, and maybe how to prevent doing that again would be helpful. This would allow the driver to make sure they learn from their mistakes and then to not make them again. Oftentimes drivers make mistakes and only get off with a ticket, but other times these mistakes could quickly turn deadly. It’s important to learn how to be safe in all aspects of driving.

The general message I think young driver’s need to know is that driving is not just for fun, it is a very serious responsibility. While taking driver’s ed, students should pay close attention to everything being taught because it will all apply in one way or another. Being a safe and cautious driver is always important and beneficial to everyone else on the road.