The necessity of driver’s education

As a licensed driver, I understand the dangers associated with driving. As my dad instilled in me when he was teaching me how to drive, a car is a weapon. It can kill others, and it’s up to you (the driver) to make sure that doesn’t happen. Driver education is important because it teaches drivers how to safely drive a car to avoid others, while people who just learn on their own or on the fly often are less safe. Two instances of this are one of my friends and my grandmother. My grandmother grew up in an ear in which girls were not taught to drive, so she ended up teaching herself. As a result, she drives with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake, as well as sudden starts and stops, both of which increase the danger for others. My friend was driving on the roads long before he even got his permit, but his cavalier driving habits almost got him pulled over once, which would have spelled disaster for him. Because he received no driver’s education, he drives very dangerously, which is one reason I’m glad I’ve never seen him drive before.

With better education, driving-related fatalities can definitely be decreased. Most people think that speed limits are arbitrarily set by people in power which aren’t looked at too carefully when choosing the maximum speed. In reality, traffic engineers need to look at multitudes upon multitudes of data points, including width of road, width of lanes, the center divider (or lack thereof), the amount of intersections, the amount of signal lights, the amount of traffic on the road, the elevation profile, how much the road turns, and how fast people who live or work along the road are willing to tolerate. Thus, speed limits are well-thought out directives people must follow in order to remain safe on roads. While certain speed limits may seem ludicrous, there’s probably a reason it is what it is, and most likely, it’s a pretty good one. After all, it’s better that people go too slow and prevent an accident rather than people going too fast and killing someone. Also, it’s crucial to drill into people’s heads the importance of following the rules beyond that they’re the law, because many people don’t care what the law says. If people know why the laws exist, people are more likely to follow them. This is something which should truly be emphasized in the driver education system.

Unfortunately, given that I’m in high school, many of my friends are irresponsible drivers. One of my friends seems to have grown out of that phase, in which he would refer to the “thrill” of going 40 miles per hour in a 25 miles per hour zone and going over 80 miles per hour on the highway. My friends all agreed that others were better to ask if they needed a ride somewhere, but fortunately, I have never needed a lift from him. Another of my friends once got a suspended license for running multiple red lights (and then driving despite his license being suspended a few days later!). Shockingly enough, he’s not even the most irresponsible driver I know. One of my other friends, who in general is a very responsible, kind, and courteous person, is a horribly dangerous and reckless driver. Luckily i”ve never been in a car with him, but he routinely pulls out of parking lots at 40 miles per hour, as well as going over 120 miles per hour (this was not on a racetrack). Bottom line, I know many friends who drive very irresponsibly, and if they truly understood the danger they were putting themselves and others into, they wouldn’t drive so dangerously.

Personally, I’m a very safe driver, but one thing I could do to be safer on the road is to stay especially alert for pedestrians, which is something I’ve never had a problem with but get the impression that I could be better in that area. Like anyone, I can also probably do better in terms of making sure I prepare for crazy drivers (and where I’m from, there are plenty of them) and accommodate their dangerous actions in order to avoid an accident. In terms of helping my friends correct their risky driving habits, those of us who drive safely can remind them of the danger of their actions, but in the end, we can’t control others, so the best we can do is make sure to be courteous when those people come zooming by at double the speed limit and avoid being driven by those people to lessen our risk.