Name: Vincent DeMarinis
From: Tampa, FL
Votes: 0
Two high school
seniors were just hours away from graduation. It was a sunny
afternoon and they had just finished the last exams. That evening
they would attend their high school graduation ceremony surrounded by
hundreds of family and friends. The seniors were in two separate cars
and each had passengers. They were driving down a well known road
that ran alongside the water. They were probably feeling so releaved
to be done with school….no more exams, no more college
applications, no more studying for the SAT! It was probably a look or
a wave, or a smile between friends that started the two cars to
race…..just for a minute…..let go and floor it! I bet they felt
so free and happy!
I cant imagine
what it must have sounded like when the baby stroller hit the
windshield. So many lives changed forever. A mother and her baby died
instantly. A father would never see his family again. So many joggers
and other drivers saw the accident, watched it happen, called 911.
Nobody really cared how the drivers felt because they were the stupid
teenagers who had just killed two people. Stupid teenagers. But I
thought about them a lot. I was a stupid teenager and I had just
gotten my drivers license. My mom taught me how to drive on that same
road. I had seen the seniors at school and knew one of them liked
chocolate milk. They weren’t bad kids. But their lives as they knew
them were over too. Forget college. Forget graduating tonight. Forget
everything. Even the passengers were arrested. The passengers!
It’s such a
cliché – teenagers just don’t THINK! But really, nobody does,
not all the time. When I started driving I was suddenly so aware that
an accident could happen at any time. “These cars aren’t on
rails” I would think. “There are people driving every one of
these cars that pass me. What if one of them sneezes?” A bug landed
on my hand once when I was in the back seat and I freaked out so
badly my dad had to pull over. So may things can happen at any time!
It’s overwhelming. But then you start driving and nothing happens.
You relax and start to rely on the fact that everybody will stay in
their lane. But THAT is the real danger.
When I first
started driving my mom taught me to imagine every driver around me as
crazy. She taught me to constantly expect the worst case scenario. As
we were driving, she would ask me what I would do if the car next to
me swerved into me, or if the car at the red light didn’t stop, or
if my passenger started barfing, or if someone threw a can of coke at
my windshield…or if the mattress feel off the back of that truck
infront of me….or if I started barfing….really crazy stuff. She
would have me practice emergency swerving when we were alone on the
street. I thought she was actually a little crazy. But when I am
driving alone now, I can’t help but think of crazy scenarios and
what I would do. I think that sort of thinking is the key to avoiding
accidents. Even when I have friends in the car with me and we are
talking, I can’t help but imagine, “what if that guy steps off
the curb?”
But deadly
accidents happen at high speeds. We never get to practice how to
control a car at 70 mph if the tire blows. Or how to swerve to avoid
a wrong way driver. I have imagined it many times, but honestly would
I be able to control my car if it really happened? Most deadly
crashes are due to high speed unexpected scenarios that cause the
loss of control in a car. I have practiced emergency swerving but on
a side street, not in highway traffic. There should be some simulator
that could let you practice with a real-size steering wheel. There
has to be a way that drivers can get practice at high speed
scenarios. That’s when people die. I have practiced many emergency
scenarios but they are the type of scenarios that happen in every day
traffic around town. These common accidents give you a sore neck dent
your car, and cause insurance problems. Deaths happen at high speeds.
Drunk drivers cause accidents but they usually don’t die – the
people they hit die. The victims are caught off guard and can’t
avoid the accident, or loose control of their car at high speed. High
speed control should be part of the driver’s licensing experience.
That would save lives. Seat belts and air bags have made high speed
crashes better but being able to minimize the crash impact would save
even more lives.
Experience is key
in most everything, especially driving. Sadly, watching kids who I
knew accidentally hit and kill someone while racing had a HUGE impact
on me. It made me a better driver. I would never consider racing
anyone, ever. I wish there could be a way for me to get more
experience in high speed situations. Maybe in the future someone will
develop such a feature to drivers ed.
