Driving to the Dentist

I was coming home from the Dentist when I was 8 years old. I had just had my teeth cleaned and a tiny filling installed because I had a small cavity. My sister, 6 years old, had also gone to get her teeth cleaned. Both of us were pretty happy because we got a small prize when we had finished. She had picked a small green bear while I had chosen an equally cute dog stuffed animal.

Our Dentist was a long 45-minute drive away because it was the only Dentist anywhere close to us that accepted our insurance. It was the dead of winter and living in Upstate NY, it was snowing and snowing all around us outside. My Mom concentrated on driving through the treacherous weather while my sister and I played together with our stuffed animals in the back seat.

We came down a hill, inching very slowly to the bottom so that the car wouldn’t slip on the icy road. We had a Trailblazer SUV, a car that we had since I was born. While it was getting up there in its age, it had always been a very trustworthy, safe car. My Mom slowed to a stop, turning on her right turn signal, the red stop sign at the bottom of the hill barely visible. She looked both ways very carefully, a steep hill to her left and a flat road to her right. We were in a rural part of the town, with no traffic on either side of us. A forest surrounded us with houses few and far between. After looking left and right once more, she turned right.

Boom. Our car spun out of control. My sister and I started to scream. I looked at my Mom in the front seat. She was trying to get control of the wheel. Boom. We stopped spinning after we hit a large wooden telephone pole. My Mom turned to the back seat to make sure we were all okay. We were lucky, none of us had a scratch.

A truck had come sliding down the hill that had been to my Mom’s left, having lost control because they had gone too fast on the icy roads. The truck had smashed into the left side of our SUV, crumpling the dark blue side. The front of our car was destroyed when it hit the pole. Our car had been totaled. Even though it would take close to a month for our car to get fixed and thousands of dollars, I feel blessed. None of us got hurt, we were only shaken by this horrible experience.

Even though my Mom had been driving as safe as could be, taking every precaution so that we could get home safely, we still got into an accident. This showed me that even if you are in a car that is driving safely, it doesn’t guarantee that you are safe. That other driver was acting recklessly, causing a massive accident. We are only as safe on the road as the drivers around us are driving.

Driving is a team sport. Each car has the duty to act safely and responsibly, each driver being able to compensate for their own mistakes. We should be able to trust the other drivers on the road to be acting responsibly, not drinking and driving, texting and driving, or road rage driving. Driving should be seen as a privilege, not as a right. No one has the right to drive irresponsibly, no one has the right to damage another person’s property, and no one has the right to end someone else’s life. Driving is a privilege that should not be taken lightly.

As I learn how to drive, I have that accident in the back of my mind. I know not to abuse this privilege. I always check both ways, come to a complete stop at a stop sign, and drive at the appropriate speed. I know that I am acting responsibly, enrolling in Driver’s Ed, practicing with a responsible driver, and educating myself on the dangers of unsafe driving. Though I didn’t need much education on the dangers, I experienced the results of unsafe driving in real life.

Everyone has a horror story moment when they thought they were going to get into an accident: someone passing you on a narrow road, nearly colliding with your car; a driver blowing through a red light, forcing you to slam on your brakes; an angry driver shouting at you and tailing you as you pray you’ll get to work safely. Sometimes, these near-accidents turn into real accidents. Lindsay getting rear-ended when she was at a red light, her back windshield shattered, and a nasty bruise on her forehead for a few weeks. Natalie getting run off the road into a ditch as she tried to get to work safely. Getting hit in the side as you try to take your little girls home from the Dentist on a snowy afternoon.

It doesn’t seem fair that you can drive as safely as possible, yet still be at high risk of getting into a lethal accident. That needs to change. New drivers should not be the only ones going to Driver’s Ed or taking Defensive Driving courses. It should be required, based on someone’s driving track record, that everyone should take a driver safety refresher course every 1 to 5 years to assess their driving abilities and to help them relearn any rusty driving skills. The driver that hit our car that snowy afternoon wasn’t a new, teen driver, but a middle-aged man who had been driving for 25+ years. This should not be an optional program, but a mandatory one because this privilege has to be taken seriously by everyone if we want to decrease the number of deaths by car accidents.

Driver education as it currently is helps new drivers learn the dangers of unsafe and irresponsible driving. At my school, every Senior must watch a presentation about the dangers of unsafe driving, specifically, texting and driving. This presentation is complete with a real-life car wreck, a replica of a real-life accident that resulted from texting and driving. Seeing the dangers of irresponsible driving firsthand is enough to make me strive to drive as safely and responsibly as possible. Driver education also allows for the participants to learn about the risks and consequences of unsafe driving, as well as teaching people good driving habits.

Cars have the potential for both great and dangerous things. Being able to drive is a privilege that should not be taken lightly because if abused, it could be deadly. I never thought that an ordinary trip to the Dentist would end in such a terrifying way. The funny thing is, I used to love driving in the snow, watching the giant flakes whip by my window. Now, all I see is the icy, deadly road that lay beneath the snow tires, and snow that is no longer a caring blanket, but a cover used to snuff the life out of anyone who dares to not treat it with caution.

Now, I go to the Dentist in the summer.