Importance of Drivers Ed and Driving Safely

In 2019, about 40,000 people have died from fatal car accidents, making drivers ed extremely crucial for new drivers. However, only sixty percent of drivers have taken a drivers ed course. Today, driver education focuses on the various road situations including speed limits, the different lanes on a road, handling car accidents, along with also developing defensive driving strategies such as maintaining a safe following distance and planning for the unexpected actions from other cars. It ensures that drivers are always aware of their surroundings and teaches them how to avoid accidents. 

If drivers ed didn’t exist, there would be more car accidents on the road, reckless driving, and a lot more deaths because people wouldn’t follow the rules closely and drive as fast as they want. For instance, my uncle wasn’t educated about the various techniques of driving as he didn’t take any drivers ed classes. An occasion where he drove irresponsibly was when he was speeding to work. Consequently, he got pulled over and was very late to work. The old saying  “better to be late than never” applies here because if he followed all the rules and wasn’t speeding, he would have only been a few minutes late. This experience teaches me to always allow extra time when traveling on the road and never drive aggressively. My uncle realized that he shouldn’t have kept tailgating cars and switching lanes to pass them, instead, the most important skill is to monitor the road conditions carefully. Aside from getting pulled over for speeding, his aggressive driving put his life at risk and worse things could have happened. Because of this, drivers ed is so crucial to every new driver because it emphasizes techniques on defensive driving strategies and helps drivers develop a habit of protecting themselves as their first instinct and value safety above everything else. 

The main causes of car accidents leading to death are distractions (texting and talking), drinking and driving, and exceeding the speed limit. Drivers need to block out distractions by powering off their phone every time they drive and keeping their conversations to a minimum with passengers in the car. Ways to limit speeding would be to allow more buffer time for driving to prevent making aggressive decisions and taking a more conservative approach. Also, I always encourage my friends and family to take drivers ed seriously and follow the rules like wearing a seatbelt, and giving the right signals. Most importantly, I try to be a role model by using defensive driving, like maintaining a 4 second following distance behind cars. An occasion where I prevented a potentially dangerous situation on the road was when a driver next to me forgot to close his trunk during a traffic light and I told him that his stuff on the trunk was sticking out. Because I was aware of the road conditions, it reduced the risk of other drivers hitting the stuff from his trunk and causing deadly collisions with other cars.