For two years of my life, I woke up covered in sweat, breathing heavily as my mind recalled the feeling of a swerving car and my mothers screams. My unconscious replayed the scene of the two cars in front of us colliding in a fiery explosion. Though my mother managed to straighten out our car, the passengers in the other two cars weren't so lucky. Later, I learned the cause of the collision to be distracted driving. My mind wouldn't erase the seared images of metal collapsing. It took years for the nightmares to stop, and even longer for my fear of driving to be erased, a fear that is quick to reignite at the reminder of how quickly car accidents can happen without the proper education.

To me, impaired driving is operating a vehicle while your ability is compromised. Many drivers confuse this with solely driving under the influence of alcohol, however, the truth is that many things other than alcohol can impair your driving. Texting, fatigue, and distractions such as listening passionately to music or even talking with friends can impair your driving ability. However, drivers often ignore the risks of these actions whenever it benefits them. When someone else causes a car accident due to texting and driving its shame on them. Yet when you must absolutely respond to that urgent text message from your friend, morality is thrown out the window when it's you in the situation to harm others. And I won't lie, I have responded to multiple text messages while driving, However, that's exactly why we must reevaluate our idea of impaired driving. The ease at which others put their lives and others at risk is concerning.

As a teen who recently got her license, I've been in multiple situations where driving with others has made me truly afraid. Entering a car with a few friends, a teenage boy behind the wheel who I had never met, I was looking forward to a fun outing with friends. However, once he started driving, my knuckles turned white as I gripped the seat belt, praying to any God that would listen that I wouldn't die. I stared dumbfounded at the driver, casually going twenty miles over the speed limit and swerving in between lanes into the darkness of the night. In a sick way I found myself chuckling as he pulled out his phone and began responding to snapchats, taking videos, and turning up the music to the point where I couldn't hear myself think about my surely imminent death. The situation seemed almost surreal. My friend noticed my discomfort, but all she could offer was a hollow smile as she turned back to the front and continued jamming out. I started to question If I was the odd one out for being afraid, then quickly bashed this thinking. I was not being a prude, I was fearing for not only my life, but the life of everyone around me. Fun does not have to equal attaining possible murder charges for your reckless driving. Fun does not have to mean sacrificing your morals to get to your destination thirty seconds quicker.

Drivers education courses are imperative to dispelling the misconstrued notion that impaired driving is solely adjacent to being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. However, the importance of these courses are often overlooked. In the rising age of media, driver's education has been made widely available through online courses, with their main audience being teenagers. Because the target demographic is young people, these drivers education courses must not only be uploaded to digital forms, but also updated content wise. The old, grainy videos must be replaced with current technology. Because these videos are so old, the growing epidemic of distracted driving from phone usage is often overlooked, making it easy for young minds to brush off the connection to their generation. Also, driver education must not sugar coat anything. My own experience from witnessing a car crash has left me with scars to last a decade. And while we must not traumatize the audience, we must highlight the severity, frequency, and ease of car crashes from everyday actions teenagers make regularly. With this, drivers education can be reborn into a system of lifesaving information and practices. The potential of drivers education is endless, and the necessity will never dissipate as long as young new minds continue to take to the road for the first time, believing themselves invincible until something irreversible happens to them. 

Despite arriving at my destinations safely, the reckless driving experiences with both my mother and the random teenage stranger have fundamentally changed me. So now, upon entering a car, I take a minute to put on my playlists, my seatbelt, and take a second to recall the importance of driving safely without distractions. Every second behind the wheel is granted to me from a place of privilege, and with that privilege, I must make it my duty to obey the laws of the road, laws that save lives every single day.