Driving tips that will Save Your Life

When I was learning to drive, I took driver’s education. The driving instructor would have me drive around the neighborhood, on highways, in parking lots, and even on the interstate. This significantly helped my driving abilities. When my parents took me, they told me the basics about how to drive, but they did not catch the smaller things. With my driving instructor, he helped me to smooth out my turns, how to parallel park, how to merge on the interstate, and how to do a double stop. I am extremely grateful for the lessons I received because they have shaped me into a safe driver. Now that I have my license and a car, I love to drive to different parks and hike for miles. I would not be able to enjoy this activity if I did not receive proper driving education.

I believe driving education is critical in reducing the number of deaths on the road. Especially with new drivers, it is important to receive the correct training. You would not become a surgeon without the proper training. Driving is just as serious. Take my story for example. My driving instructor gave me tips on how to improve my driving. My parents could only take me so far. I needed a reliable teacher. If I had not been equipped with the right education, I may not be able to make my turns efficiently. This may have led to me colliding with another car or me overcorrecting a faulty turn. With driving education, you need to log in a certain number of hours of driving in order to pass the course. You will get your license only when the instructor feels you are ready. This ensures that you are a capable driver who will make safe decisions on the road.

There are some steps we can take to reduce the number of deaths on the road. Naturally, driving education is a major step. Another critical step that I feel we are slacking on is educating high school students in the classroom. When I attended high school, I never learned how to drive a car inside the classroom. I feel like high schools, especially boarding academies like the one I attended, should offer some kind of driving education. I can understand if some schools cannot actually take students on physical driving lessons, but there should at least be an elective on tips for safer driving. Within this elective course, the teacher should explain how to change a flat tire, how to jumpstart your battery, how to change the oil, how to change the brake and windshield fluid, what all the lights on the dashboard indicate, how to check your tires’ air pressure, and what equipment you should always carry in your trunk for emergencies. I feel like a lot of new drivers are lacking in these areas simply because they were never taught. My dad knows the basics like how to change a tire and jumpstart your battery, but beyond that, he doesn’t know. I believe that an elective would solve these issues.

Another step that we should be taking is putting up more billboards along the interstate of safe driving tips. Whenever I drive along the freeway, I notice all these signs for fast food and insurance, but think how much people would notice if we started putting up signs that shared tips on how to drive better. A clever saying on one of these signs could read, “Stop reading this sign and pay attention to the road!” Some of these billboards should include statistics about distracted driving and car accidents to really get people thinking.

For me personally, I have never been in a car accident. However, I have experienced a family member driving, not irresponsibly, but aggressively. My grandma lives in a suburb of Chicago called Schaumburg. There are a lot of cars on the roads. A lot of people are rather rude. I have noticed that my grandma drives in an assertive manner. She always speeds up to pass slower moving cars even when I would not do it myself because I would see the situation as unsafe to do that. She takes her turns rather hard. She does not come to gradual stop to make her turns. She just rolls into them. She sometimes cuts the yellow light a little too close. She drives a little too fast in resident areas. Do not get me wrong, she is a good driver. However, I think that living near a major city like Chicago has made her more aggressive on the road.

There are steps I can take to be a better driver. For starters, I can learn from my grandma’s driving and try not to emulate it into my own driving habits. Another thing I have learned is to watch for drastic changes in the speed limit. One time I got pulled over for going too fast because the freeway speed limit reduced down to 55 MPH because I was passing through Cincinnati. Driving at safe speeds reduces the risks of getting into an accident. A major step that’s important for all drivers is to remove distractions from your car. If you like to eat while you drive, do not put snacks in your glove box. If you like to text and drive, put your phone in the glove box.

As a driver, I always need to vigilant on the roads. My mom always tells me to expect someone to do something stupid on the roads, and usually they do not disappoint. The biggest thing for me to be a safer driver is to always keep my eyes on the road. I don’t want to be looking at my phone. I don’t want to be nodding off. I don’t want to be talking to a passenger. I need to be paying attention to the road in front of me and the cars around me.

In conclusion, driver’s education is a seriously important way to teach new drivers safe habits while driving. This can reduce the number of fatalities we see reported on the news. We should also be teaching driving techniques in schools, especially high schools. That way, students will not enter driver’s education without any knowledge about driving. We should also utilize billboards as ways to cut down on casualties. While I have never been in a car wreck, I can take steps to become a better driver. Learn from the mistakes of those older than me, pay attention to speed limit changes, and remove distractions from the car, so your dedication will be solely to the roads. It takes effort on everyone’s part to make our highways safe. It takes a city, so let’s make it happen. There’s a quote I like by Mona Driving School that says, “Mind on the drive. Hands on the wheel. Eyes on the road.”