Revamping Driver’s Education

Upon turning seventeen, I could not have been more excited to get my license, to be able to have my own car, the ability to go where I wanted, when I wanted. After passing the road test, I headed straight to the DMV to get my new license and I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. For the first few months I followed every speed limit sign, but then I started to get cocky. It started off as only going 5mph over the limit, but that quickly grew to 10 and then 15 and then even 20mph over the speed limit. I was passing everybody on the road, cutting in and out of traffic, even if I was just going home to lay in bed watching tv.

Eventually however, my bad habit caught up to me as I was traveling on the interstate going 86mph in a 65mph zone, passing cars and leaving them in my rear-view mirror. But the next thing that I would see in that mirror were the flashing red and blue lights of a police car as the officer had caught me on his radar. As I pulled over panic grew amongst my body, my heart started to race, my palms filled with sweat, my legs began shaking uncontrollably. When the officer came up to the window, I had no idea what to say, and even if I had the words would not have been able to come out of my mouth in a coherent sentence. Knowing I had only had my license for not even a full year, the officer asked me why I was in such a hurray and I had no explanation. That’s when the officer explained to me the dangers of my actions, the fact that I could get someone hurt, the fact that I could hurt myself and my family would never see me again. When he presented me with my ticket, it wasn’t the money that made me so upset, it was the disappoint in myself and the realization of how stupid I had gotten.

For me this was a lesson learned and I have not been pulled over since that day. Luckily for me, I learned my lesson before ever getting into an accident and ever getting hurt or even worse hurting someone else, someone innocent. Unfortunately, so many others are not this lucky and are not able to learn this lesson until it is too late. The amount of people who fall into this second category is too great of a number and changes must be made in order to lesson this monstrous number.

To me reform must start from the ground up, specifically with driver’s education. For me, driver’s education was a few weeklong course during gym class in which I honestly don’t remember much about what we talked about. I know we went over all the different laws when it comes to driving, all the different speed zones, what each traffic sign meant, etc. All of these are no doubt important and necessary for each driver to know, but instead of dedicating so much time into drilling facts such as how much longer it takes a tractor trailer to stop compared to a car, it would be of greater use to teach the importance of safe driving and the consequences of what could happen when one does not drive safe. Why not bring in guest speakers to talk about what happened as a result of them speeding or them using their phones while texting or under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. Let students hear their stories, let them be scared, not so that they don’t want to drive, but so that they don’t want to make those same mistakes.

We bring in guest speakers to talk about drug and alcohol addictions, we bring in guest speakers to talk about their careers, so why can’t we have guest speakers for such a serious topic. If that had been stressed to me more while I was in driver’s education, I would have no doubt remembered what went on during those few weeks of my sophomore year of high school. I most likely would have never fell into the bad habit of speeding that I had fallen into. By shifting the focus on what is taught in driver’s education, I believe our roads will become a safer place. Driver’s will understand what could and will happen if they don’t take their actions behind the wheel seriously. My lesson was learned, but now our education system must be revamped so others can learn their lesson before they even get to the stage where I was.