She Was Just Sleepy

She Was Just Sleepy

On December 6th, 2018, the way I viewed driving changed forever. Until that point, no one in my family had gotten into a serious car accident. As a result, accidents felt unreal and almost impossible, like I believed they’d never happen to me. If you asked me about them just a day before, I wouldn’t be able to wrap my head around me, or my family, getting into one.

On that Thursday morning, however, as I saw how sleepy and slow my sister was when she got into the driver’s seat, the possibility of an accident slipped into my mind. As quickly as it came, however, I disregarded the thought. She’s been bringing me to high school for about a year at that point, what would make that day any different? There was no reason for me to tell my mom that it looked like my sister was unfit to drive. I was right for 6 minutes of that 7-minute ride.

In order to enter my school from my direction, you have to take a left turn. Unfortunately, the light was almost always blinking yellow, meaning we had to yield. As my sister made a hasty turn to finish up that 7-minute drive, I looked up from my phone to see a car speeding in our direction. A second later, we were spinning and everything happened at once: the smell of metal and engines entered my nostrils, my glasses flew off, and the airbags blew up. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt in both parties, but our car was completely totaled.

Moreover, no one told me about the fear of approaching cars that I’d hold in the coming weeks. I still remember the flinches, the racing heart, and the quickening breaths, even though said cars had already slowed to a stop. Evidently, that accident was never far from my mind, even as I took my own first steps towards driving. It taught me that staying on the safe side was always the better option, and encouraged me to not make risky choices, even though I was rushing or running late.

That being said, I believe drivers ed is immensely important in reducing the number of deaths due to accidents. With proper knowledge of the rules of the road, the chance of accidents is significantly reduced. This includes understanding signs, speed limits, stopping distance, the effects of certain substances, and even weather conditions. Comprehension of these many components gives the driver better judgment, and thus, a faster and safer reaction if anything happens. On a different note, I believe the biggest problem of drivers, especially young ones, is that they feel invincible. They don’t think accidents will happen to them, so they make dangerous choices and end up hurting themselves, as well as others. As I previously felt, accidents don’t seem real to them. Thus, I believe it is vastly important to continuously remind them that they can happen to anyone. One single mistake, even something as mundane as feeling sleepy, can result in large consequences.