Behind the Wheel

Screams. Lights flashing. Loud sirens wailing all around. Is this modern warfare…or a mere car accident? Too many people lose their lives in driving collisions every week, let alone every year. 1.35 million people every year aren’t vanishing into thin air, irresponsible driving is the culprit. The statistics are beyond scary, definitely enough to terrify a young teenage girl of sixteen about to go into a high school Driver’s Ed class. My fear paralyzed me as I walked through the door and took my seat, my drivers handbook shaking in my grasp. Driving. The big achievement, the goal every teenager strives for. Driving means freedom, not having to worry about asking for rides, or making plans on the weekends. Finally getting behind that wheel is a mark of maturity, a momentous occasion when a child takes one more small step towards becoming an adult. We relish those first months with the keys, driving anyone anywhere anytime. But what happens when that freedom the young driver holds so dear… turns deadly?

Consider driver education. What comes to your mind? A tiresome class sitting and taking notes about menial road signs, a mere check in the box towards driving freedom? A harping mother sitting in the front seat clutching a handrail? What comes to mind for me is safety. Safety that I am educated as well as I can be so that I don’t endanger others. I want to feel like I know what I’m doing and be confident behind the wheel of a car, so that not a moment of doubt comes over me. What would happen if everyone felt that way? What if drivers cared about taking these classes and tests instead of dreaded them? It all comes down to empathy in my opinion. To be able to forget oneself and focus on the danger and the scary possibilities of the external situation, one must hone their inner empathetic core, the responsible, cautious, educated driver is inside all of us, we just need to acknowledge that responsibility and put it to good use. If we all showed a little more empathy and respect to the education and safety of driving, maybe there wouldn’t be as many horrible deaths every single year. Maybe young drivers wouldn’t be three times more likely to cause a collision than any other age group, especially ages sixteen to twenty-one.

So, what can we do about it? How can we, the cause, also be the solution? I draw back to empathy and being aware. Young drivers in my experience tend to do what everyone else on the road is doing, which is very dangerous and just adds to the multitude of harm caused by ignorance and apathy. We need to draw a line between the two, to educate those who are ignorant and confront those who are apathetic. I would like to say that it only takes one person to make a difference, but the reality is that it doesn’t. young drivers don’t want to stand out, they don’t want to be the odd one out in a conversation about reckless behavior. Young people in general are more likely to do something just because someone else did. We need to normalize driver education and safety and do our best to spread the message that being safe isn’t a bad thing.

Now, a common ponderance might be, why doesn’t anyone do anything to stop these deaths? Well the issue is, it’s all around us all the time and that can be a lot of recklessness to contain. Even I, your responsible author, have been involved with/ been witness to reckless and irresponsible driving. When I was young, I was involved in a hit and run in which my father was getting gas and his truck was hit from the side by a careless driver. My own brother has been in a dangerous collisions with his vehicle. He’s even totaled a vehicle by rear-ending a fellow driver. Young drivers like to show off, they like to be careless and worry-free. They speed because they think no one can stop them, or that no one will stop them. The solution to this is to always be stern. Don’t allow unsafe behavior in your vehicle. Don’t let your friends ride without a seatbelt, and don’t ride with friends who don’t wear seatbelts while driving. These are simple things we need to be learning so that we can protect ourselves and our friends from dangerous mistakes. And so, when faced with the age-old question, if someone you knew did something bad, would you do it too? What would your response be, in reference to safe and educated driving? Would you choose adrenaline, or your life?