Education on Operating a Motor Vehicle (Teaching Patience and Focus)

The importance of drive’s education from high school or a private company is that it helps the new driver learn in a non-stressful or less stressful environment. Rather than learning from a family member who might have higher expectations from them and put higher pressure on them. That could cause them to become more nervous while driving and develop bad habits that could cause accidents in the future.

Personally, this is what happened while I was learning to drive, where my girlfriend would start yelling at me when she was teaching me, that would cause me to become flustered and just pull over. However, I took classes in Chicago with a private school and that helped me become more comfortable behind the wheel. In turn that helped me focus on the potential road hazards instead of the fearing them. Since when you are driving nervously it could lead to an overreaction to a simple issue on the road and cause you to go out of control from that reaction.

Being a calm driver is important to reducing the number of deaths related to driving. If some one cuts you off, it should not be a big deal, just let them go. There is no need to chase them down, and let them know what they did and how angry you are at them. If someone is driving slow in front of you there is no need to tail gate them and make them speed up. They could be a new driver and still getting comfortable on the road.

With being a claim driver also comes with being a patient driver. If you catch all the red lights; so, what. Speeding from light to light is just dumb. If you have to change lanes and swerve in and out of traffic to get to where you are going on time, maybe you should have left 15 minutes earlier. Not being patient could lead to an accident. Yes, you finally made a light before it hit red, but you just hit someone making a left turn before you could stop, and they couldn’t see you since you were speeding. All that lane changing saved you five minutes until you hit another car that had the same idea as you.

Luckily, I have only been in a few accidents (none where I was the driver), and all of them were the fault of the other driver. All because they were not paying attention to the road in front of them. The few accidents I have been involved with were, we were rear ended twice they were following too close and not paying attention. Then t-boned once (on the passenger side where I was sitting) because they did not stop at their stop sign. Luckily there were all low-speed crashes, but if they were going faster, it could have been worse.

Those accidents if people were being mindful of the road and traffic conditions would not have happened. If the other drivers were watching the road these accidents would not have happened. Luckily no one was hurt in any of them, but sometimes that is not the case. I hard the sound of a fatal crash, I heard tries screeching followed by the sound of an impact. This was around 2008 I found out from the news that they were speeding south down Pulaski Ave and just crossed Belmont Ave. late at night they ended up hitting a fire hydrant causing all four teenagers in the car fatal injuries from the crash. That was four blocks away from my house and I heard it. The speed they must have been going was over 75 MPH if I recall correctly.

That is another major issue with road fatalities, what does anyone need to go well over the posted speed limit. I see no need to do so, and I don’t if road conditions are crappy, I will dive at a speed that I feel safe at drive, while not being so slow I am causing a hazard myself. If we just got a foot of snow, my Costco trip can wait till the streets are nice a clear (being in Chicago that is not too long). And when I am on my way there I am in no rush, I will get there when I get there.

While this all helps me become a safer driver, I have to be mindful of the other drivers on the road. I can not control what they do, but while I am being a defensive driver, I can be ready to be an offensive driver is I need to react to a driver who is not being safe on the road. While I cannot make every driver be safer. If I am driving in a safe manner, the way my driving school instructed me, my actions should not be the cause of an accident. I recall one of my instructors saying “you would be surprised at the number of unlicensed drives out here, most of these people probably don’t have one” I know I am being safe and driving to my abilities, as for the other drivers out there as of now I can’t help them become safer. I could, however, try to campaign for a more stringent lesson plan to get a license.

The program should be a yearlong, so one could have driving experience in all weather conditions. It should start in a simulator before they get their hands on a actual vehicle. They should go through a realistic road hazard course so one could be trained in those situations in all-weather conditions. Where one would learn how to do an emergency stop in dry to icy weather. There should also be an additional option for the type for passenger vehicle they would like to drive, where it be a subcompact car to a full-size pickup truck, or even a high-performance sports car, since each one has its own handling characteristics. If every state in the US had driving requirements like this, I believe with a curriculum like this teaching driver to focus and to be patient it could help reduce the amount of traffic fatalities.