Smart Driving Choices

Life is all about choices.  Even when we feel we are out of options, there a still many choices to be made.  Driving is no different, the act of driving is comprised of many small choices.  Many small choices that can add up to some really big consequences.  As a teen, you may be accustomed to your choices having little to no consequences.  You probably have learned which choices to make to keep Mom and Dad off of your back and you may have learned which choices to make in school if you want to get good grades and which choices you need to make to receive disciplinary actions.  Oftentimes, teens are in the unique position of leaving the age of being a child behind and heading toward the age of adulthood, but not yet having many or any of the responsibilities of an adult.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are many teens who are very responsible and many others who are not.  Even so, teens typically aren’t responsible for making the big life decisions for themselves or for others, they typically aren’t responsible for deciding most of what is happening in their lives at any given moment.  Even teens without much parental guidance typically live within a structure where most decisions are made for them.  Well, this is not the case once you find yourself behind the wheel.  Once you grab hold of that steering wheel, you are stepping into an entirely different world of choices.  Now it is all up to you to make the smart driving choices.

Your choices begin the moment you step into your first driver’s education classroom, or login to your first online driver’s education lesson.  You can choose to just try to get through this, or you can choose to try to really take it all in and learn all that you can.  Obviously I would recommend the latter of the two choices, given that driving can be so very important.  Choose to be alert, always on your toes and thinking in the classroom, and you will likely be able to continue these good choices once you start driving.  You will notice in your driver’s ed classes that many of the statistics and movies seem to be geared toward scaring the heck out of you.  The theory is that if the stats and scenes scare you a bit, you might take them more seriously and you might choose to drive in such a way as to avoid any negative things happening to you.  It is very important that you choose to take driving very seriously so that you don’t find yourself in a very serious situation that you hadn’t planned for or wanted to be in.  It is important to note that a person who has recently been in a dangerous car accident does not need to be reminded to drive safely.  Once you have had that experience, every part of your body will be telling you to drive safely to avoid re-living such an event.  But, time heals and as humans we expect things to stay the same, so if we have gone for a long time without an accident, we may truly believe that we are such good drivers that we will not get in an accident.  Well, I’m here to tell you that accidents can happen to anyone.  It is our job as drivers to decide to make all of the right smart driving choices in an effort to  avoid accidents whenever possible.

It’s all about choices.  While driving, we make many little choices like when to change lanes, when to apply turn signals, when to check blind spots, when to brake, when to accelerate, etc.  All of these choices can seem rather daunting at first, but over time you will learn how and when to choose and they will become more like habits than like choices.  That’s why it is very important to choose to do things properly from the start.  Humans are creatures of habit and it is easier to develop new, good habits than it is to break old, bad habits.  Do yourself a favor and decide to build good habits, not bad ones.  Decide right from the beginning that you will always check your blind spots both left and right, every time you move that vehicle left or right.  Decide that you will always come to a complete stop behind the stop line every time.  Decide that you will always drive defensively.  Decide that you will always use your turn signals.  Decide that you will always keep your vehicle well maintained.  Decide that you will always check your mirrors every 6-8 seconds. There are many more small choices that you need to decide are important and decide to do properly from the beginning.  By doing this, you will learn to do things properly long term and your driving will be much safer because of it.

Aside from all of these small choices, there are a number of really big choices that can have a tremendous effect on your life.  Speeding is one of those choices.  Every year, way too many people are injured or killed due to excess speed.  We are all in a hurry to get somewhere, but you must realize that as speed increases, so do the dangers.  Choosing not to speed gives you more time to make all of the other smaller choices while driving.  The faster you are going, the more quickly a bad choice will affect you, the less time you will have to correct a bad choice, and the more tragic the results of a bad choice can be.  Choosing to drive too fast for conditions has left many drivers out of control and in the ditch.  Even the best drivers have little control on icy surfaces.  Choosing to drive too fast will give you less time to stop when you need to.  Let’s say a car pulls out in front of you.  The faster you are moving, the more ground you will cover while your brain is figuring out what to do.  Once your brain chooses what to do, it will take your brakes and tires a lot longer to stop your vehicle at faster speeds.  Do yourself a favor, choose now not to speed.  Learn More About Speeding

One of the hardest choices to stick to might be the choice of vigilance.  We must choose to always be vigilant and respectful of the dangers of driving.  This is a choice that is hard to stick to because driving is so ingrained in our society.  We see cars every day, almost every family owns a car if not two or three.  We jump in and out of cars all day long, hurrying across town, picking up friends, shopping, going to work, going to school or maybe just driving for enjoyment.  Also, the cars of today are so easy to operate, so user friendly and so comfortable that it is easy to forget how dangerous they can be.  It is only natural that if we spend so many hours driving around in such comfort and no accidents occur that we begin to believe that no accidents will occur.  This is where the trouble comes in.  We get too comfortable, we let our guard down, we become less vigilant and we get ourselves into trouble.  The shear number of safe, comfortable driving hours makes us forget how deadly car crashes can be.  I have often said that the best experience to keep drivers vigilant would be for everyone to have a really close call every once in a while.  If the near accident was scary enough, we would be back on our guard and driving more carefully once again.  Take it from someone who was a passenger in a car one second and a second later found themselves barrel-rolling through a field.  That comfy seat that you are sitting in can become a very dangerous, terrifying and deadly ride in a mater of milliseconds.  Choose vigilance, choose life.

Another really big choice includes drugs and alcohol.  The only reason that I even write it that way is because our society, for some reason, sees alcohol use as different from the use of other drugs.  In reality, alcohol is a drug, so when I write drug, I am including alcohol.  All drugs affect our minds and our ability to function.  You would do well to treat all drugs as dangerous and choose to not do them at all.  Once again, good habits are easy to maintain, bad habits are hard to break.  Having said that, I know that some of you will choose to use drugs.  Whatever you choose, you must choose to never do drugs and drive and you must also choose to never be a passenger in a vehicle where the driver is under the influence of drugs.  We know how dangerous driving is just because of the simple fact that we are driving huge, heavy machines at high rates of speed.  We know that driving is dangerous because people get lulled into a false sense of security because cars are so common, easy to use and comfortable.  We know that using drugs affects reaction times, drugs affect our perception of reality, drugs reduce our inhibitions and drugs affect our visual acuity.  The combination of drug use and driving is deadly, there is no doubt about it.  Choose to avoid the synergistic effects of drugs and driving at all cost.  Choose life.  Learn More About Drugs