Save Lives With Education

The importance of driver’s education is this: According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it is estimated that in 2022 there were 42,795 fatalities in motor vehicle traffic crashes. 42,795 Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends- lost. Every single one of those individuals are loved and missed due to a split second that cost a life, dwindled down to a statistic. My beloved cousin Danny is a part of that statistic. If he was more educated on the dangers of driving carelessly, he would still be with us today. Driver’s education must be more present not just in the eyes of new drivers, but experienced drivers. By educating all drivers from all walks of life we can express the importance of responsible driving and reduce these terrible deaths.

I have always been aware of the dangers of the road well before I drove it by myself because my father works for my state’s Department of Transportation he worked on the roads when I was much younger and now, he supervises his workers on the roads. It has always been very scary knowing my dad was out there on the roads while drivers are zooming past him without a care in the world, they don’t think about losing control and in a split-second their vehicle and taking away a little girl’s daddy. There have been a few instances where tragedies like this would happen. I remember just last year one of his guys that he supervises got hit on the side of a road picking up some debris and my dad would go visit him in the hospital- he was injured bad but thankfully he recovered. I was always so terrified my father would go on a call back and not come back because of an irresponsible driver not paying attention. He would always get called into work for accident clean-ups and he has seen some morbid scenes, knowing this he always stressed to my sister and I how imperative it is that we drive safe and slow down for emergency/roadside workers.

Now that I am an incoming high school senior studying engineering, I have an internship at my state’s Department of Transportation. Part of my internship is seeing the field, which includes standing on the side of a highway for a field meeting while vehicles are zipping past us 80 miles per hour with just a guardrail in between. Now I am experiencing this danger firsthand, and it is absolutely panic inducing. The deafening sound of racing cars, the heat, the sobering feeling that a car could drive off the road at any second. However, in my state we have the “Move Over Law” which “…requires any driver approaching a stopped emergency vehicle that has its lights activated, to either move over into a lane that is not next to the emergency vehicle, or to reduce his or her speed to a “safe speed” while passing the emergency vehicle if changing lanes would be impossible or unsafe” (State of Delaware Office of Highway Safety). Even though this is a law, many people don’t abide by it- because they don’t know it exists! We can change that by including it in drivers’ education and decrease emergency and road worker deaths.

While everyone gets caught up in the day-to-day bustle of life, driving should be the one time where we need to focus on one thing and one thing only- getting to our destination safely. I have found driving somewhat therapeutic, as a person with ADHD my mind is constantly racing with at least 4 different things, but when I drive, I concentrate on the road and my surrounding drivers, I forget about my troubles and what I am going to have for lunch the next day and just drive. Promoting mindfulness of just driving could be beneficial to people like me who may feel the urge to do three other things while driving. But just sitting back and following the rules of the road can be very therapeutic.

Personally, I have never been in a serious accident or engaged in reckless driving because of my background I know the risks. Especially now as a DOT employee, during my onboarding training we had an entire section on driver safety, and the statistics of all categories of roadway deaths. I believe that this sort of subject should be included in driver’s education. We should expand driver’s education to not just instruct how to drive, but why we need to drive safely.

Media, N. (2023, April 20). NHTSA estimates for 2022 show roadway fatalities remain flat after two years of dramatic increases. NHTSA. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-estimates-2022

New Safety Law takes effect January 1 “Move over” law … – delaware. (n.d.). https://ohs.delaware.gov/pdfs/PDFs/Move%20Over%20Law/release%20-%20New%20Move%20Over%20Safety%20Law%20effective%20Jan%201st.pdf