The Impact of Educated Drivers

Fundamentally I think educating drivers and teaching people to drive correctly from the beginning with a much less relaxed testing system is one of two major ways to drastically decrease the amount of fatalities from car accidents that occurs every single year in the United States. Overall driver education is incredibly important, and I honestly think drivers should be retested and taught consistently as they get older in order to main they are a safe driver and haven’t grown complacent in their driving and become a risk to others on the road. I think the senior law the state of Georgia follows (where drivers 60 or older have to retake their test every 5 years) should apply to everyone at any age, there is no reason why the driver education someone passed at 16 should apply to them until the average citizen has retired or their grandkids are finishing the same driver’s education course and test a full two generations later. I think the second route would simply be for us as a country to take a step back and really look at and approach the issue of our nation’s car reliance. Cities where cars are not an absolute must are few and far between and usually restricted only to very large metropolitan areas. The public transport in this country is often deeply flawed or non-existent and I think that decreasing car dependency nationwide is a sure fire way to save potentially millions of lives. I’ve only ever been in one legitimate car accident in my life, but I was luckily too small to even remember it. I have had an extremely close call though where two of my high school friend’s cutting up and distracted driving caused them to miss a stopping car ahead and we absolutely would have gotten into a potentially deadly accident if I hadn’t been paying attention. I grew up in Georgia but moved to Florida for middle and high school and just actually moved back for college. Growing up I thought it was insane Florida didn’t follow Georgia in a “hands-free law” where you couldn’t so much as pick your phone up while behind the wheel but as I’ve gotten older and returned to Georgia I realize the “hands-free law” is good in it’s intention but almost impossible to maintain in practice. I see just as many distracted drivers on their phones or doing anything and everything besides driving and it absolutely infuriates me to know that so many lives around them are in their hands even just moment to moment, and only exponentially more so when taken through an entire day, or month, or lifetime of distracted driving and people can’t even be bothered to register the weight that should and absolutely does carry. I’m even more disgusted by the fact even now people continue to drink and drive even at my age, I absolutely consider this to be one of the most selfish and harmful acts a driver can perform because it absolutely puts so many people at risk of death or serious injury, I also fully believe both of these could be solved to a great extent if the vast majority of people in this country (many of whom shouldn’t be considered safe enough to drive) didn’t absolutely have to have a car to get through their day. Public transportation not only makes a far more accessible city but also a much safer one as very few things are equally as common place and dangerous as dangerous or distracted drivers driving multi-ton vehicles that could end a pedestrian or other driver’s life in the blink of an eye. As far as being as safe of a driver as I can possibly be, I think remaining vigilant and not allowing myself to ease into the “comfort” of driving is an important step. Educating myself on road laws and the handling of my vehicle broadens my options and knowledge of what can and can’t be done while on the road even in a dangerous situation. I think most importantly too remaining vigilant and stern on my values when my friends are behind the wheel as well, keeping on them about staying off their phones and paying attention to the road instead of goofing off and hopefully making them more conscious drivers for the foreseeable future so in turn their kids and grandkids and so on will also be safe drivers after they instill the same cautious vigilance.