• Have you ever had an experience of being in car accident or have seen your friends or family members driving irresponsibly?

• Have you ever had an experience of being in car accident or have seen your friends or family members driving irresponsibly?

I have personally never been in a car accident that I remember. I have however experienced times of close calls and bad driving from peers and family, during my final years of comprehensive school I saw many friends learning to drive, passing their test and driving independently which has also meant I have sadly witnessed the stereotype of the dangerous young driver being realised.

I am a person with severe anxiety and can recall many times I have been sent into an episode of deep fear, anxiety and panic due to the reckless driving of peers. I can recall a time sitting the front seat of my friends car, all things seem fine and safe and suddenly we enter the motorway and they put their foot down, swerve from lane to lane, turn the stereo up take their hands off the wheel to dance and play about, all this whilst all the passengers are laughing, except me. My foot also slams down onto the floor pushing an imaginary brake praying from it to somehow work, my hands grip the side on my seat trying to feel some sort of stability and stillness whilst I am shouting for them to “STOP MESSING AROUND, SLOW DOWN NOW!”. They slow, slightly, only to take our turning off the motorway to reach our destination at a shopping outlet. When we enter the carpark my friend drives to the back, as a new driver he doesn’t want to park too close to another person as he does so we see a car full of more of our friends speeding towards us we have no where to go except into a wall but the other car doesn’t slow down instead speeds up, this time I am not the only person panicking, all of us are including the driver, he cant go anywhere. At the last minute the other car slams on his brakes, he didn’t hit but we were all left stunned and scared. The other driver gets out and walks over to our car laughing, I get out and look at them both and say “you are both idiots, driving isn’t a game you are playing with people’s lives and that’s not fair or funny.”

People need to learn and be taught the fact cars can be weapons, accidents happen yes but the way to prevent as many as possible is to be safe, responsible, sensible and vigilant whilst driving. Whilst driving you are not the only person you nee to be mindful of, even if you are driving alone there are cars all around you and your mistakes, your speeding, distractions, fooling around can cause them to get into an accident that you may not get into yourself, for example you cutting lanes on a roundabout could cause the person you cut Infront of to swerve, brake or panic causing them to get into an accident which you don’t even realise as you have driven off.

Driving safety should be something taught in some way during school in order for all people to have some basic understand and concept of road and traffic safety regardless of whether they want to drive or not. Car crashes happen too often and introducing this teaching into school could reduce the amount accidents and increase personal accountability and understanding of driving and how your driving effects other cars and people.