Driving: Their Life in Your Hands

On my family’s way to Orlando, Florida, from our small town in Indiana, I remember sitting in my black and yellow car seat; I must have been around five or six years old. I remember squirming due to how uncomfortable it was and how I started causing a distraction for my parents. After all, I had implicit trust in my parents that nothing would go wrong. Thankfully, nothing went wrong, and we made it safely. For a child, this was the most obvious thing in the world. For a child, cars do not crash. This all changes eventually; for some, it happens sooner than others. Those that experience a car crash when they are young can learn this far too early, while those that never experience one can learn it far too late. In 2019, I saddled up for my first driving experience. This took place in my childhood baseball field parking lot. After starting the engine and checking my surroundings, I put the car in drive and began doing slow, careful laps. I only drove for about an hour, but it changed my life. As I held the steering wheel and felt my foot slowly press down on the gas pedal, I suddenly realized that in every car is a human. A human that is just as likely to make a mistake as I am. My breath became short, and I felt an enormous responsibility, one that I would now have to deal with for the rest of my life. This responsibility was people’s lives. I realized that if I made one small mistake on the road, dozed off for just a few seconds, or got distracted for an instant, I could kill someone. This realization and its implications are what I want to share with every driver.

Education is the most important part of making drivers aware of their responsibilities on the road. A study on teen driving in Nebraska found that those who took driver’s education before getting their license were significantly less likely to get into a motor vehicle accident shortly after obtaining it (Shell). Drivers’ education programs are one of the most important tools that the United States has at its disposal to combat poor driving habits, such as distracted driving and driving in poor condition. However, only 37 of the 50 states actually require drivers’ education to obtain a license (“Which States Require”). Of course, there are still other requirements that need to be completed to get a license, but this still allows many drivers to enter the streets without a properly organized driving education. Initiative should be taken by these states to implement driving education requirements so that drivers in their state can learn how important taking responsibility for their actions on the road is. Although driving education is extremely important to road safety, there are some things that it cannot fix on its own.

Drunk driving is one of the most important road safety concerns that driving education alone cannot control. The issue with driving drunk is that even when the person in question is aware of their responsibility to protect everyone on the road by not driving under the influence, alcohol can cloud their judgment and make them more easily convinced to do it anyway. This is why it is important that people make the decision not to drink and drive while they are still sober. If they can hand their keys to a friend or ride with someone who does not have intentions of drinking, then this would greatly reduce their risk of driving drunk. The problem with this is that although many people plan not to drink, they can often be peer pressured into doing it anyway. This is why it is important for such individuals to be taught the proper way to refuse a drink. In a study by Hannah Morris et al., it was found that many people avoided such situations by coming up with acceptable excuses or flatly stating that they did not wish to drink (Morris). However, many people can still be tempted to drink even after such statements. This is why it is important that students be taught in school how to have a healthy relationship with alcohol. Most school programs that teach about alcohol only preach abstinence, but abstinence programs are known to fail in other subjects (Stranger-Hall and Hall). Instead, teens should be taught when, where, and how to drink safely. This would give teens the resources to make safe decisions regarding alcohol and avoid getting themselves in situations where they might drink and drive.

In the end, it is the responsibility of everyone to make sure that our roads are as safe as possible. From banding together to improve certain states’ driving education to teaching students how to have a proper relationship with alcohol, there are many ways that our current road safety could be improved. Children implicitly trust that those on the road know what they are doing. Most people have experienced this when they were growing up and understand the feeling of not being able to imagine getting into an accident. Eventually, almost everyone grows out of this stage of their lives and realizes how dangerous the road can be. However, we should strive to make our roads a place where people do not have to grow out of this stage of their lives. One where cars do not crash.