Driving Education: Why You Should Strive to Obtain It

Ever since I was planning to get, and eventually got my driver’s license, all my friends have asked me these questions. “Why did you go to driving school…and with someone who used to be a highway patrolman, like seriously? Why did your parents waste their money on something like that? Why didn’t your parents just teach you themselves?” I was constantly bombarded with these inquiries and could never understand why my friends were making such a big deal out of something like this. It’s not like it is something unusual to do. I know lots of other people that choose to take driving lessons. Yes, I know that getting a driver’s license is a big event, but why should you care so much about who teaches you?

Driving education is extremely important, and you should most definitely care who teaches you, no matter what others think or say about it. Taking lessons can most definitely help you to be a safer driver on the road, but I know that are probably not a lot of individuals who are going to take or have taken driving lessons from a trained professional. You are going to use a car almost every day of the rest of your life, so you shouldn’t settle for anything less than the best. The only thing that you should be worrying about is getting the best instruction, not what your friends or anybody else thinks about your choices.

Although, it may be the easiest option to receive instruction from a parent or guardian, it may not be the most logical one. You should get your education from someone who is highly trained, like a highway patrolman or instructing professional, in order to effectively learn how to drive safely. While I am sure that my parents would have been fully capable of teaching me, they still decided to send me to driving school. They didn’t so this because they didn’t want to teach me, but because they love me. They wanted me to be adequately prepared for any driving situation and they want me to be less likely to get into a crash. I know that having the opportunity to participate in certified lessons, unlike all of my other friends, served me well.

One of the reasons I am glad about the way I was taught is that I was able to be placed in a safe environment to learn how to drive. My instructor had his own brake pedal on his side of the car so that he could stop me if I did something wrong, which made me feel sure that nothing bad was going to happen to me. A regular car would not be equipped with this kind of safety. My instructor increased my driving difficulty level quickly, but only because he was sure that I was ready for it. He went from parking lots to city streets, from city streets to highways, and finally from highways to my driving test. I learned all I needed to know over the course of six 1-hour lessons. If I had been taught by my parents they may not have had the expertise to know if I was absolutely ready, and it probably would have taken much longer for me to learn from them. To be honest, I don’t think I would have even attempted the task of getting on the highway had it not been for my instructor. He made getting on and off the highway so simple that I still can’t grasp my mind around the idea of why I was so stressed about it beforehand. I passed my driver’s test on my first time, all thanks to my amazing teacher.

Another reason for my happiness and thankfulness is the way I was taught. Instead of simply telling me what to do, my instructor showed me. I would then take my turn in the driver’s seat and copy what he had done. One thing I like especially about this was learning how to parallel park. He had poles, just like they would in an actual test, so that I would feel like I was really parallel parking in a small space. I got the hang of it after only two tries. When I was taking my driver’s test, the highway patrolman grading me said that he could tell I was taught well. Something that really helped me in my learning journey was that my teacher had diagrams of four-way stops, turning onto a road with multiple lanes, and many other situations. He combined many different ways of learning so that I would get the best results from his teaching. My parents most likely would not have taught me in this manner, and I might not have learned quite as well.

I am so grateful that my parents chose to give me driving lessons from a professional, partly because of my training, but also because it makes me much less likely to get into to a crash, or even worse, die. I have seen horrible things happen to people because they didn’t know how to handle a certain situation. One of my cousins got drunk and he decided to drive himself and minor, who was also drunk, instead of having someone sober drive him home. He ended up getting in a crash, getting his license revoked, and going to jail. Personally, I have been in a crash where the other person involved was driving on the wrong side of the road. My mom got terribly injured, with her legs being sliced by the glove box that shattered in front of her. I believe that incidents like this can be avoided of everyone can be properly taught. I think I am very prepared to tackle the roads in my hometown and anywhere else. I hope that more people are blessed with the opportunity to experience what I had the privilege of experiencing.