Driver Education: Safety is Key

Driver Education: Safety is Key

While driver education is something that most of us will go through at some point in our lives, it’s not something that many of us stop to think about in our day-to-day experiences. This educational program is fundamental and extremely important in order to ensure that we all remain safe, both as a driver and as a passenger. When we stop and take a minute to understand why we go through the driver education program, oftentimes we can come to the conclusion that it’s for our safety but it usually doesn’t go any further than that. Whether it’s learning how to operate a vehicle, how to park, or how to maneuver in dangerous weather conditions, driver education allows us the space to learn, and possibly experience, in a safe and controlled environment how to handle these situations. The state of Michigan, for example, goes through all four seasons and each season provides its own opportunities to learn how to deal with the infamous “Michigan weather.” Our winter can be very treacherous and a season that many Michigan residents hate, but in the world of driver education it allows us to learn how to navigate through deep snow and horrible blizzard-like conditions. Additionally, working at one of Michigan’s best driving schools, which has been around for over 25 years, has allowed me to see firsthand how these students experience and drive in Michigan’s horrid winter weather with our highly trained instructors. When students learn to drive in conditions such as these and are given an understanding of what to do in these situations, it drastically decreases the likelihood of our students getting into a fatal accident in the future.

When it comes to taking steps in order to reduce the number of deaths related to driving, I feel the most important step is to reduce distracted driving or driving under the influence. Being proactive about these things can help to eliminate the number of injuries, or even deaths, that occur. Teaching students to place their phones in their glove box or to not eat a whole meal while driving can encourage them to stay focused on the road and not allow the smallest distractions to get in the way of them operating a vehicle that could possibly cause harm to themselves or others. Although there’s not a way to prevent the number of deaths related to driving completely, doing things such as reaching out to city representatives or state legislature and asking them to create a statewide law on keeping your phone away while driving could be helpful in order to save lives. For instance, Michigan, as well as some other states, doesn’t prohibit people from being on their phone while being at a red light, but I feel as though this could also help prevent serious rear-end collisions.

Although I’ve thankfully never had an experience of being in a car accident, I’ve definitely witnessed both my friends and family members driving irresponsibly at times. Starting off with my friends, it’s not often that I go somewhere with them and I’m not the one driving. When I pay attention to their driving habits, I tend to notice that they eat while driving or check their phone at red lights, but those aren’t necessarily bad since it’s not against the law in the state of Michigan. I’ve also learned from watching others drive that just because it isn’t against the law doesn’t mean you should do it. Occasionally, I witness my friends texting and driving or changing the song on their phone while driving, but besides that, I feel my friends do a pretty good job to stay safe on the roads. Moving along to my family members, I want to draw particular attention to my dad and the ways in which he drives irresponsibly. For context purposes, he loves sports cars and the idea of driving fast in a really cool car. While he has a regular car which he drives rain or shine year-round, he also has a sports car that he loves to drive fast in. I’ve noticed a few ways in particular that point to ways he drives irresponsibly, but the main one I’m going to focus on is racing other cool cars he sees on the freeway. It’s frustrating for me as his daughter to witness this first-hand because there’s not much I can do about it, and I feel that oftentimes he doesn’t stop to think about the possible danger he’s putting us in as well as others on the road.

Finally, in order to become, and help others become, better and safer drivers we can ensure that we wear our seat belts, not text and drive, not drink and drive, and many other things. If we all work together to prevent distracted driving and continue to stress the importance of good driver education classes, we can help our community out by keeping everyone safe and attentive on the roads.