The Ancestry of Driver Education

The Ancestry of Driver Education

Personal transportation had been a major boon for Americans thanks to the creation of the Ford model A in 1903 and the Ford company’s use of interchangeable parts and assembly lines. These three inventions working together created the major car manufacturer Ford and has been a pioneer in terms of personal automobiles. While this is such an amazing accomplishment as the years passed, motorist and pedestrian fatalities began to steadily rise to high levels. With ~6600 motorist and pedestrian deaths in the year 1915 people were starting to worry about driver safety and in the year 1925, deaths had already reached ~21900, over three times the death toll from 1915. In the 1910’s the american government made attempts to make driving safer by using laws that we see even today such as, laws, signals, fines, and drunk driving arrests.

With these statistics in mind, we as drivers need to realize that since the cars we drive are mindless machines that crashes are almost only caused by drivers. We as drivers need to understand that education is our best tool on the road to avoid crashes and that the second best tool when it comes to safe driving is word of mouth, if we can alert those that we are close to towards the importance of safe driving, then it could save a life or 21900 lives. Driver education has had a significant importance in the early days of driving and it has just as much, if not more, importance with our modern machines and distractions.

Driver education is something that we all have to take classes on with the laws set in place by the american government and for good reason, but I have talked to friends of mine and certain ones have expressed a lackadaisical nature to the classes they were in. This is a crucial step in becoming a safe driver that some of us don’t catch on to, for if we don’t pay attention in the initial classes that we take, we may forget important safety steps later in our life. With such small differences in certain signals and road lines, how can we remember all of the safety rules we’ve been taught in the past? We can always review driver safety every couple years or look up the rules of the road when we notice something that we don’t understand or if we see some driver do something that we consider unsafe or incorrect. We shouldn’t feel pride for considering ourselves safe drivers though, since pride leads to ignorance and could cause us to refuse the possibility that we may be driving unsafe or that there may be a way that is safer.

Driver education is one of, if not the most important method of automobile prevent, especially when it comes to young new drivers. According to the AAA, drivers from the age of sixteen to seventeen have the highest tallies of crash involvement, deaths of others, and injuries to themselves and others.These are the drivers who should’ve just learned all there is to when it comes to driver safety since it is a requirement to take driving classes, yet they are the leading cause of vehicle related crashes and this most likely comes from the lack of experience and lack of vehicular knowledge that they have. If we can invoke the knowledge of safe driving even in people as young as fourteen or under, we could be saving their and other’s lives in the future. Even raising the required amount of practice driving hours and making sure parents are going to make sure that their children thoroughly practice driving in a safe and controlled environment could be the biggest step towards road safety.

I have made the personal mistake in the past of not putting safety first and I tried to be a goofball whilst driving during snowy weather, this resulted in my car falling into a ditch in the middle of the night. If I had taken it slow on the icy terrain, then I wouldn’t have dented my bumper and shook myself and my significant other. This acted as a turning point for me and I have strived to be a safer driver since then, making sure to follow the rules of the road and encourage others to do the same.
In conclusion, driver education has been considered the most essential skill when it comes to driving to keep all parties safe when someone is driving on the road. We should all be practicing safe driving to ensure we are up to snuff on the road and that we’ll be able to train the next generation of drivers to properly execute safe driving for their daily lives. If we all encourage our friends and family to follow safe driving habits, then the roads will be safer, not just for them, but for everyone as well. Driver education is the most important part of driving and should not be merely glanced over, but thoroughly observed to keep our roads safe.