Driving Education is Important

In 2019, over 38,000 people lost their lives due to driving accidents. According to the same statistics, most of those deaths were caused by young drivers who were four times more likely to crash than older drivers. This is significant as it suggests that drivers with less driving experience are much more dangerous to themselves and others. According to most of the scientific literature, the best way to minimize the crashing discrepancy is to make sure drivers have more experience before they get on the road through a complete and comprehensive drivers ed.

Without a formal driving education course, young inexperienced drivers may forget how to perform simple tasks such as turning on the taillights when completing a turn or not being able to parallel park. Although these two examples may seem like minor mistakes, they can potentially lead to thousands of deadly accidents. In order to avoid these scenarios, several steps must be taken. First, everyone should be required to attend at least 10 classes of face to face driving education. Second, the driving education classes should include a more comprehensive overview of certain important concepts to make sure that young, inexperienced drivers don’t forget them. Lastly, the methods of instructions can be changed to be more modern. For example, car simulators may be used for more people to understand the driving experience. The simulators can show the aspiring drivers that simple mistakes can lead to the destruction of a vehicle and to the deaths of many people.

One of the reasons I am so passionate about driving education is because of an experience I had in a car with a novice 18-year-old driver. Although he only drove me for about 20 minutes, he failed to follow several key traffic laws such as turning on his headlights when it became dark and yielding to traffic at an yield sign. Combined with his very aggressive driving, I became so scared that I refused to go in the same car with him again. A few years later I asked that friend about his experience getting drivers ed as I was curious about how he was even allowed to drive. As I expected, he only did the absolute minimum necessary and did not take any formal classes. This story clearly demonstrates that just passing a written test and getting lucky on a driving test is not enough practice for a teenager to wield a deadly machine.

After the incident, I promised several things to myself. Firstly, I swore that I would take all the drivers ed courses available even if they were not mandated by law. I also promised myself that I would completely read through the driver manual. Lastly, I decided to reach out to my friends in hopes that they would follow my path of learning. I simply did not want to face the reality that my friends could drive irresponsibly, a situation that would endanger their lives and the lives of others.