The Significance of Driver Education

Waking up at 2:30 am at the age of 10 to the sounds of your parents frantically running out of the house with first responders on the phone is not something every kid wants to experience. Seeing the terror in your mothers’ eyes and the disbelief in your fathers, while knowing no information about what happened or what’s going on, nothing. Them not telling their two younger children anything and being told “Just stay here, we’ll be back in a little bit.” Having to stay home alone with your neighbor as you’re unaware of where both your parents and older brother are and every possible situation rushing through your mind. Eventually being told that your brother is laying upside down in a ditch down the street from your house and the sound of fire trucks and ambulances rushing past is engraved in my mind. I wish to never relive this day. And I wish nobody will have to experience the same situation me and my brother did this day.

Days later following the accident, I became aware that the reason this happened was because he had been drinking and driving and steered off the road, flipping his truck upside down in the ditch across the street. His vehicle was filled with water and no way to get out. If it wasn’t for the neighbor who was awake across the street, I don’t think he would be alive today. It scared me to think that he had taken the leap of faith to drive home, not thinking about how badly he could’ve ended his life that day. Looking back at this incident, it has caused such an important feeling for me and allowed me to understand and encourage everyone around me about the importance of safe, educated driving. As future drivers, it is our responsibility to understand the importance of safe driving practices. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 36,000 people in the US die in car accidents each year. This number highlights the importance of driver education in reducing the number of deaths concerning driving.

As I neared the time to begin learning to drive, I was terrified. Not because I was scared I would make the same mistake my brother did or because I was going to cause an accident, but because I couldn’t trust others to not end my life the way my brother almost ended his. The biggest thing I was told, even from a young age, was to watch out for reckless drivers. This was the truth, as this is what scared me the most. The more I have driven over the past couple of years, the more I realize how important it is to understand safety on the road to reduce deaths related to driving. Driver education can help people learn about the important rules of the road and the consequences that come from reckless driving. Important factors include obeying traffic laws, avoiding driving under the influence, wearing your seatbelt every time you’re in a vehicle, and avoiding distracted driving.

Driving is a serious task and when people tend to drive recklessly and disobey the important factors of safe driving, it causes life-threatening situations and life-ending events. Each day you or a loved one could be killed or extremely injured by someone who chose to disobey the law. Steps that I feel I can take to become a better driver are to be less distracted and focus on the road. Being a teenager, social media is the pride and joy of my society. However, social media is not more important than my life, nor is it more important than anybody else’s. This is something that I try to influence my friends along with the other factors stated previously. Being in the car with a friend or even a family member who is driving distracted, picking up their phone, or even noticing they are not obeying laws, I will say something because not only is their life in danger but mine as well.

Driving is a privilege and is something that has its benefits and drawbacks. Taking advantage of it can lead to life-changing experiences. Driver education is something that should be heavily enforced because no one should have to experience the trauma I experienced at such a young age. Although these rules may seem repetitive, once you get into that one life-changing accident, there is no going back, no putting that seatbelt on, no way of putting your phone down, and no way of changing the past.