Country Roads Safely Home

On this fine August day, I enjoyed an incredible morning exercising a few equine friends and felt the beginnings of a wonderful day. I cleaned my tack, carefully swiping between each braid, zipper, and metal buckle. Then, I treated each horse appropriately, sneaking an extra carrot to my favorite boy, and gathered myself into my dad’s well-loved car. I opened Spotify, buckled, prepared for my seven-minute road trip back home, and drove out of the barn driveway. While Dua Lipa sang the chorus of Levitating, I sat at the dreaded 407 intersection stop sign. Sporting low visibility and 60 mph thru traffic, it is easily the least favorite part of my drive. A minute passed like molasses as I eagerly awaited a break in the traffic, mind drifting towards lunch and changing out of sweaty barn clothes. Finally, no cars appeared on the right and a large truck was turning on the left with no others following, or so it seemed. I darted across, and as Dua Lipa hit the high notes, a SUV emerged, t-boning me on the driver-side door and pushing the car 30 feet onto the shoulder. Gripping the now lop-sided steering wheel, my ears rang with blaring horns and my mind raced, contemplating the reality of the situation. I tried opening the driver-side door, but it remained firmly secure. Finding my phone in one piece, I released a prayer and dialed my mother. By climbing over the consul and exiting the passenger door, I surveyed the damage my impatience wrought, strew car pieces, a crunched fender, oil puddles, a smashed door, red bruises, and puffy eyes.

In a technologically saturated world, convenience is key; however, convenience does not save lives. I took an online driver’s education course, and though I do not have any complaints about the information taught, it lacked a realistic feel. I watched videos, flicked through PDFs, and answered multiple choice questions with obvious correct answers. I could leave it for a year or complete it in a week. It was too convenient. My driver’s test boasted two chances, one trip to preview the route and then the real test. We drove through a neighborhood and parallel parked, ensuring I looked in my mirrors and used my blinker before changing lanes. Passed. Looking back, it was an insufficient test, avoiding all highways or complex situations, yet that simple test gave me free rein over the highway system. It was too easy. No true skill required.

Since technology is here to stay and constantly advancing, driver’s education services should utilize this opportunity. If the 1980s could provide driving simulator classrooms in mobile trailers, complete with pedals and steering wheels, the 21^st century can certainly improve. Driver’s education companies could offer virtual reality (VR) headset services so that new drivers can encounter realistic simulations in the rain, ice, snow, low visibility, or accident-prone situations where their decisions suffer consequences without injury. After all, without leaving their home state, how will individuals in the south know how to drive in the ice or snow when the weather initiates a state of emergency? To test the effectiveness of this design, the individuals who take the VR class could allow the driver’s education company permission to pull their driving record, which the company could compare to those who took another option. Over a five-year period, VR students could earn back their driver’s education cost each year they share their record as an incentive. To scale this option, a driver’s education service could partner with an insurance company motivated to decrease accidents. Experience is the best teacher, but a VR course would at least give new teen drivers some familiarity and knowledge of how to react. Though I am a more careful driver now, not necessarily because of my class or test, but because I experienced a wreck, no one else should partake in that prerequisite.

That fateful August day, the only casualties were the cars. I could have died and the passengers in the other car could have been seriously hurt, all because I wanted to save a few seconds. I am thankful I escaped with only my injured pride, purple knees, and a scar from the airbags. Now, each time I hear Levitating by Dua Lipa, I remember when I did my own levitating across the asphalt, landing on something other than the top 100 charts. Despite ruining the song, it keeps impatience’s danger at the forefront of my mind. As I live a post-accident life, other songs – my driving playlist – evoke images of poor driving behaviors and remind me what habits I should practice instead. Carly Rae Jepsen had it right singing Call Me Maybe – when I am out of the car. No need to take my eyes off the road to read a text. Even though my car will announce text messages to me, I choose to avoid this feature to prevent additional distractions. The text will still be there later, but I might not if I look. Instead of speeding down the highway, I should Take It Easy like the Eagles, resisting the urge to let the wheels drive me crazy (and check back in with the speed limit). When I cannot take the monotony of white lines and never-ending asphalt any longer, I utilize Country Roads [to] Take Me Home, admiring the good distractions – cows, mountains, large fields, sunsets, and the natural beauty all around us, stopping to give myself a break and allowing my mind to Dream On without negative repercussions. Most of all, these songs remind me that I am Carrying [Someone’s] Love With Me. There are four people at home, my extended family, and friends that desire my safety on the road and homeward. If I do not come back, the suffering does not stop with me. If I am not an attentive, conscientious, effective, and defensive driver, I will leave a path of destruction in my wake larger than that August afternoon. So, before I enter the car, I take a deep breath and say a prayer, carrying with me the lessons learned from my driving playlist.