How to Improve Driver Safety

How to Improve Driver Safety

Drivers ed is more than just important for driver’s safety, it is a necessity. Understanding the laws of driving help keep fewer accidents on the road and fewer people in hospitals or worse. Each region in a state may have different levels of educating others on how to drive; some regions or states touch the bare minimum of what should be required, others go far and beyond overboard making it tedious to even consider driving.

For example, when I took my driving course, my only requirements was to prove I knew the basics of a car and could follow directions; I drove around the block and made a three point turn then I got my license. Where in another part of the country, you must take a 4 hour course and a written test before you can sign up to take the driving test, which is much more involved than simply driving around the block in a small neighborhood. This are two simple examples of driving education, on the ends of too little and too much.

Too little training and cost gives anyone the ability to drive without truly testing if they are competent behind the wheel and on the road, and too much training and cost discourages others to drive legally. This, in turn, leads to more accidents caused by extremely undertrained drivers and more unfortunate deaths.

Like most things in the world, moderation is key; having a test that has buy in, people practicing in the real world with quality supervision, and real consequences upon failure would do the driving community a world of good. Testing without a standard but that allows one to travel to areas with different levels of expertise does not help the reduction of accidents. To help reduce the number of accidents, every driver should have the same relative level of expertise from the driver’s courses. This can be done a number of ways but the two that stick out to me are such; every driver should have to take the driver’s course in every county, state, and/or region that possesses a different level of training or, the more reasonable approach, a standard driving course.

While a standard course cannot cover the nuances of driving in a particular region, it can bridge of gap in undertraining and overdemanding. This idea of a standard course can let others come out of the gate with the same understanding and continue to master driving through Life’s greatest teacher, Experience. Now this concept doesn’t come from a place of experience in driving; I’ve never been in any accidents nor have any of my friends and family been in anything serious either, this idea just makes the most sense to me, as my driving test was extremely easy, I’ve had to pick up skills from practice, practice, practice.