The Responsibility of Driving

At a very young age, I learned the importance of driving safely and remaining attentive at the wheel. Wisconsin cities have harsh winters, dangerous thunderstorms, and unpredictable weather. One winter our truck spun after changing lanes and rolled into a ditch. It was a very surreal moment for a first-grader, seeing the snow covering the majority of the window and the rest of the population speeding by. As a teenager, I relive that moment sometimes and remind myself that you can be a good driver and still end up in an accident. Although it wasn’t due to a controllable mistake, experiences such as mine, even as a passenger, has sculpted me into the driver I am today: attentive, careful, and considerate of others. 

As I grew into the mature, young adult that began to transition into high school, who got accustomed to advanced classrooms, and moved out of my comfort zone, I also moved behind the wheel of a gigantic responsibility. Learning to drive is one of the greatest milestones a young adult experiences in their lifetime and I will never forget my Drivers ed class or the places we went during my Behind the Wheel lessons. These specific steps that I took to become a well-educated driver were vital in providing needed information about the rules of the road. Although it was horrific to see sometimes, we also were taught about the fatalities of driving dangerously. I felt that it was important for us to see that you are not only taking your passengers and your own life in your hands but those of the surrounding cars as well. Educating young drivers both in a classroom and behind the wheel are great ways to engrain rules and the responsibility of driving safely into young minds because it encourages attentive listening and outlines the gravity of the upcoming excitement.

Despite the recommended course and required amount of practice needed before getting your license, I think that it is important to keep educating yourself well after your road test. During everyone’s sophomore year at our high school, students go to a performance called “PARTY at the PAC”, a show detailing the dangers of driving such as under the influence, while distracted on a cellphone or exhausted from a workday. They described in incredible detail the causes and consequences of each, even bringing in the guilty and the victims. I remember the sheer amount of emotions that engulfed the auditorium, including most adults, and that is when I knew that this made a huge difference in the hundreds of lives there that day, including my own. I believe in order to reduce the number of deaths caused by things we can control, such as texting while driving, drivers need to be educated by personal stories, not statistics or warnings. By feeling what the guilty party felt after they committed the wrongdoing or by listening to a victim’s pain, we feel it too and it transitions into how we drive.