Parent Teachers or Drivers Education

As someone who has lived for a long while and has experienced much of what the world has to offer, parents sometimes have more life experiences than their children. However, that does not make them experts in a specific field or subject. Just because they have been driving cars way before their children were born does not mean they have efficient knowledge or experience like a driver’s education instructor. Unless your parents happen to be driving instructors, then they will know the best way to teach you in the comfort of your home and environment.

However, I do not have driving instructors as parents. As a result, I feel that I am missing out on learning more about safety precautions and driving laws that many teenagers would learn in these driving courses. In my state, driving courses are encouraged but are not required to obtain a driver’s license. Instead, they required fifty hours of practice with a learner’s permit. Practicing with a learner’s permit is good, but how will anyone know if the person really completed the full fifty hours of required training? Will the person know the road laws? Do they know what to do in certain situations? Many questions go along with this type of rule that would lead to safety concerns for drivers and may lead to accidents and deaths if they are not answered. However, these questions could be answered with the implementation of mandatory driver education. In these courses, students will learn about road laws, how to handle various situations while driving, and while also getting the hands-on driving practice that they need to receive a driver’s license. While accidents and deaths cannot be completely abolished while driving, they can be prevented by understanding what to do when driving. This can be done by attending driver’s education courses to learn laws and safety and practicing what was taught when driving during the course or with your parents.

While I have thankfully not experienced a car accident of my own, my parents have experienced their fair share of accidents in their life. However, their accidents came from the negligence of other drivers. If the majority of drivers had to take mandatory driver’s education classes, it may have prevented many of the accidents my parents were in. For example, my father was in an accident on his way to work. It was snowing that day, which is unusual for southern states. My father was going below the speed limit as the conditions of the road were not good. However, someone was going the speed limit and started to spin on the ice. Their car hit my dad’s and it caused him to have a sprained wrist and a nearly totaled car. While my mom warned my dad to not go to work while it was snowing, the other driver should not have been going as fast as they were on the icy road.

While I am still learning how to drive, I am a bit nervous when I am driving. I worry about my safety and my dad’s safety as I am still relatively new to driving and I do not want to hurt anyone in the process. For starters, I can practice more with the areas I have problems with, such as turning and making sure my blind spots are clear of people when merging. However, I believe that taking a driver’s education course would help me feel more confident when driving as I will learn more about road safety and what to do in dangerous situations. The instructors will teach me all at once instead of during certain circumstances as my dad does. That way, I will be ready for anything that may happen while I am driving by myself after receiving my license.

Driver education is not mandatory in my state, so many parents teach their children how to drive themselves. However, parents are not experienced enough in teaching their children laws and safety behind the wheel like driving instructors are. With a driving instructor and course, a student will learn about laws, road safety, and what to do in dangerous situations as well as driving practice. These courses will help the students feel more confident when driving and will keep themselves and others safe. While I have not personally been affected by a car accident, I have seen accidents on the news and many people in my family have been involved in a few, whether it was their fault or not. These accidents may have been prevented if taking a driver education course was mandatory. It would have allowed everyone to understand what needed to be done in different situations and events which could have prevented any injuries or deaths. While I am learning how to drive with my dad, I still need to learn more about safety and the laws of the road. I have studied some road laws to receive my driver’s permit, however, I think I still need more training and education in safety and laws to keep myself and others safe. Taking a driver education course is not only to keep yourself safe but to keep everyone around you safe as well.