Most Valuable Lesson

Driver education is critical in reducing the number of deaths from driving. You aren’t born knowing how to drive and everyone needs help learning how to drive safely. It is during driver education classes where people learn all about the different steps needed to make car accidents less likely. Preventing accidents is the responsibility of every driver, as being in an accident can be very scary and even deadly.

In driver education, I learned a lot of steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths. Start out by making sure you are in good shape to drive. Don’t drive if you are drinking alcohol and don’t drive if you are too tired or too upset. Don’t drive if you don’t have the skill and knowledge. Even if you passed the driving test and got your driver’s license, don’t drive by yourself until you’re really comfortable and know everything you need to know. You shouldn’t be embarrassed if you want to take a little longer to practice before you drive by yourself.

Also, make sure that you have a safe car to drive. The car should have good tires, good brakes, and all the lights should work. You need to have seatbelts for everyone in the car. Make sure that you have adjusted the mirrors and know how to work everything in the car you are driving. If it’s bad weather (which you shouldn’t drive in unless you really have to), make sure you have the proper equipment like good snow tires.

Once you are driving, drive defensively. Always assume that someone is about to do something illegal or dangerous and be ready. It takes time to respond so always look ahead so you can see ahead of time things that might happen. If someone does cut you off or does something else that is rude, don’t get road rage. Just do deep breathing and then focus on driving. Try to get away from the person that is driving badly.

Make sure that you also aren’t the one cutting people off. Pay attention. Don’t get distracted. Don’t text or try to figure out directions while you are driving. Don’t pay too much attention to your friends in the car and don’t get distracted by trying to find some good music. Just do one thing and that’s drive. Pull over if there’s something else besides driving that you want to do like check a text or look for something in your purse. 

You also need to make sure you follow all the other laws. Go the speed limit. Stop for people crossing the road. Don’t go through red lights or stop signs. Turn into the lane you’re supposed to.

If you follow all of that, then it’s less likely that you will have an accident, but accidents can still happen. I was in an accident on my way back from Girl Scout camp. It was stop and go traffic. The person behind us was doing something on her phone and not paying attention. When we stopped, she had to swerve around us and go onto the grass in the middle of the highway because she didn’t notice we were stopping. We got lucky that time. We weren’t so lucky the next time. Less than five minutes later, we stopped again, and she didn’t have anywhere to go because this time there was a guardrail and she crashed into us. 

I learned from that crash that bad things can happen if you text and drive. I make sure that when I am a passenger that the person who is driving me follows that law too. A couple of months ago, my friend was snapchatting on his phone and I made him pull over to finish his typing.

It’s important to speak up whenever you are a passenger in a car and the driver is being unsafe. Sometimes, it can even be a much older person making a bad choice. I had to stop my friend’s mom from driving us to the movies drunk. It was scary to speak up and to tell my mom and the school counselor, but I knew I had to do it, even if people got mad at me or made fun of me. Other kids were telling me she was fine, and it was no big deal, but I knew better than to get in the car with someone who is slurring their words. Driving is a big deal and it only takes one bad choice to kill someone or be killed yourself.

I am forever grateful that my parents paid for me to take driver education classes. I learned a lot about how to keep myself safe and how to keep other people safe too. The teacher told us that these classes were the most valuable lessons we were going to learn at school, and I can understand why. I want to do everything I can not to be one of the 34,000 people who die in a car accident each year.