It Takes a Village to Keep Teens Safe Behind the Wheel

It Takes a Village to Keep Teens Safe Behind the Wheel

Memorial Day, 2020. A day supposed to be marked with celebrations and fun with family and friends. Instead, it was one of the scariest days of my life. I invited my girlfriend and several friends to spend the day at my house on the Connecticut Shoreline. Most of us were new drivers, I had my driver’s license for 3 months.

The morning was a little overcast with light rain but that didn’t discourage us from planning to hit the beach. My best friend Stino texted me around 8:00 am to say he was on his way. He was coming down with Cam who had his license for a year and was able to have passengers in his car under the graduating licensing law. Cam’s parents just bought him a $30,000, Nissan 370Z sports car and he was the envy of all my car enthusiast friends. Cam already had a reputation of driving too fast and my parents wouldn’t allow me to be in the car with him.

The drive is about 45 minutes. I was hanging out with my friends Arianna, Abbey and Cam’s girlfriend. My girlfriend, Lindsay, was late but I didn’t give it a second thought because it wasn’t unusual for her. A short time later, she was dropped off by her mom. Lindsay said she got stuck in traffic on the way here because of a bad accident. She said a car flipped over and the fire trucks were there. By 8:15, I sent several texts to Stino but he didn’t respond. I knew in my gut that they were in that accident. I frantically texted Stino’s brother and my fears were confirmed, they were in fact involved in the accident. Even worse, their condition was unknown. All of us were now crying and praying they were alright. Come to find out Cam was speeding and lost control of the car which took down a light pole and struck an embankment which caused the car to flip onto its roof. Both were injured and trapped upside down inside the car. Stino called his mother from inside the car and she drove to the scene. After being extricated by the fire department, they were transported to the hospital by ambulance. Cam received a concussion and Stino had to get multiple stitches in his forehead. If it weren’t for them wearing seatbelts and the car’s airbags their injuries would have been a lot worse. The car was severely damaged and had to be totaled.

At first Cam seemed remorseful but that didn’t last long. Not only did Cam’s parents not take his driver’s license away for any meaningful period of time they instead rewarded him with a new car. I don’t think he learned anything from the accident because he continues to drive recklessly. Stino continues to suffer from POST Traumatic Stress.

My high school required all athletes and their parents to have education on drug and alcohol resistance. As part of the training, a speaker was brought in to talk about her life altering experience. The speaker told us she was recruited by several colleges for basketball and that her mother was a judge. One night while in her senior of high school, she was out with friends at a bar drinking alcohol. She left the bar by herself drunk and was driving home when she lost control of her car and crashed into a guard rail and was partially ejected. She was in a coma for several weeks and her arm was so badly injured that it had to be amputated. I still have the image in my mind of her walking around our auditorium wearing a tank top exposing the stump where her arm used to be and the huge scars around it. She said she couldn’t speak when she first came out of the coma and had to communicate by writing. One day while her mother was visiting her in the hospital, her mother asked why she didn’t call her for a ride the night of the accident. She wrote back the word “afraid.” She explained that her mom never had those types of courageous conversations with her and that she assumed her mom would kill her if she told her she was drunk. She said her mom was devastated. She said the other thing she learned was that the people that she thought were her friends abandoned her when she needed them the most. They didn’t stop her from leaving the bar drunk that night and they didn’t even come to see her after the accident.

I really got a lot out of driver’s education. My parents spent a lot of time teaching me how to drive and more importantly discussing their expectations and consequences of my not adhering to those expectations. I knew that they would take my license if I was irresponsible. I thought my driver’s education was valuable because some things piggybacked what my parents taught me and some was new information. I think some things are easier to learn when taught by someone other than your parents. I connected with my driving instructor, Jane, because she had a nice balance of making classes fun but serious when needed. I also think you get more out of learning when the lessons are structured and you view the teacher as an expert, which is the way I saw Jane.

Unfortunately, not everyone has parental support or takes driver’s education seriously and needs more to be a safe driver. I know statistically more teenage boys than girls are in car accidents because of risky behavior. In the case of Cam it was the desire to show off. In others its impulsive behavior or peer pressure.

We could save lives and reduce the number of car accidents in the United States if we had a way of controlling teenagers’ ability to drive fast in the first place. Knowing that the last thing to develop in our teenage brains is the ability to think before we act, we need to do more to protect kids and society. I have three ideas toward this goal; one is to give parents the ability to restrict the speed their teenagers are driving. I suggest a law requiring auto makers to install a device on that can regulate speed. Parents could install a phone APP that could monitor and regulate how fast their children are driving. Does it make sense that we have laws to protect children from inappropriate content in movies and that parents can restrict what their kids see on television or cell phones but there’s no way for parents to control how fast their children are driving? Secondly, I would require teens to pass a test to gauge their maturity level in addition to the other requirements before they can get their license. Lastly, I would mandate more involvement in driver’s education by parents. My parents were only required to attend the first class. Their presence in the classroom would send a message to their children about how important the class is and how much they actually care about it.

I’ve had my driver’s license for a year and try to lead by example for my friends and brother who is about to get his learner’s permit. I know my brother is watching me drive and I want to model the right things so he will be as safe as possible when he starts driving. I also think I can be a positive influence on my friends by reminding them to drive safely especially when I’m in a car with them.

I think the formula for being a safe driver is to understand and respect the responsibility you have to yourself and others when driving, follow the rules of the road, critique driving situations where you didn’t do so well, good communication with your parents and modeling good driving habits to your friends and family.