Driver’s Education

The Importance of Driver’s Education

Driver’s education is very important to reducing the amount of deaths as a result of driving. 34,000 people die a year due to driving and when we compare that to historic wars such as the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Iraq War, that number is still huge compared to the amount of people that died in those wars. By being educated on the laws of the road, you are helping yourself and others around you. By being uneducated on the laws of the road, you are putting yourself and others in danger around you. We can all significantly drop the amount of deaths due to driving with proper education of the road. I bet that if everyone followed the laws, or atleast made an effort to follow all laws of the road, that the number of deaths due to driving would significantly drop. By not following the laws you could kill someone and go to jail. It would be a serious accident and you would have to live with that guilt for the rest of your life.

The steps that can be taken in order to reduce the number of deaths related to driving can include paying attention, proper driver’s education and making sure you obey all laws whether it’s a road law or phone law. By following these simple but hard steps, it will make the roads ten times safer. The amount of drivers on the road that are not following the laws is what makes the roads so unsafe. Imagine you are the only person on a highway without your phone in your face, although you are doing the correct thing, you are still at risk due to other people’s actions. Driver’s education saves lives and it is something that younger generations especially need to listen and follow.

I have had one experience with a car accident in my life. As a 17 year old driver I thought I was doing pretty good until just a few weeks ago when I got into my first accident. Thankfully, no one was hurt and everything ended up being okay as it was a small accident, but it was still an accident. It happened just in my driveway, I hit my mother’s car. This happened because I wasn’t paying attention while driving and I was using my phone. I thought it “wasn’t that bad” because I was just talking to my boyfriend on speaker phone, so I wasn’t actually “using” my phone, right? Wrong. I was still distracted, and I still crashed the car. Using your phone while driving is extremely common but it is against the law. This is a law that people often look over and think it is not as important. People often think they can get away with it without any consequences. New laws such as the Distracted Driving Law that went into effect on April 4th in Ohio are to help prevent people from going on their phones while driving.

With that being said I have seen many friends and family members that have struggled with that very law. While being in the passenger seat of their car, I notice the phone usage and how it is overcoming them. At the same time, I understand how hard it is to stop doing as I struggle with it as well. There have been times when I have felt unsafe by being in a car with someone that is not fully paying attention to the road and more their phone. But by seeing the amount of people that I know doing it, I know it must be a big problem for everyone in this world as you can simply look out your car window and see someone texting and driving.

Steps that I can take and have already taken to be a better driver is putting the phone down and overall listening better to the rules of the road when it comes to speed limits and turn signals especially. It is very easy to get distracted while driving but these laws are put in place to keep us and everyone around us safe. I have gotten into a habit of setting my phone down while driving or even just leaving it at home. It helps to just eliminate the distraction and not have the temptation. I have also driven with the music quieter and less verbal distractions on my routes. This allows me to think better about the laws and not let anything slip my mind. Being able to think clearly is better to remember each and every law of the road.