Driving Today

BY: JENNA HUBBS

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Learning to drive can be a scary thing but it can also be the door to freedom so many people search for. 

At the ripe age of 15 a person can start the path towards obtaining his/their/her license. It can be a magical time in one’s life. Driving today certainly isn’t like what it used to be 100 years ago. Now there are cars that run off of electricity instead of gasoline. There are even cars that do both. Cars can tell you when you’re too close to the lines on the road or when there is a car too close to your own. The technological engineering of these machines is absolutely mind boggling. How so much can be changed in such a short amount of time is a win for humanity. 

With that in mind, it can make driving so much easier. It is never easy to learn a new skill but having all kinds of handy tools definitely helps. 

Boonville Sophomore, Deken Morris, recently got his license early September of this year. He says that learning to drive “wasn’t very hard.” Deken enjoys the freedom that driving allows him to have. He enjoys spending time with friends and now he doesn’t have to ask for a ride anytime he wants to see them. Deken states, “My car doesn’t have any of those [advanced] features so I would say it’s not that much harder andit’s definitely a good skill to know how to drive without those tools. But driving with those tools definitely makes it significantly easier.”

Whether you have a newer car with all the bells and whistles or an older model, it doesn’t matter. Regardless, driving is a key turning point in an adolescent’s life. It allows the driver to go where they want when they want without waiting for someone else to take them. Hungry? Drive to a restaurant or supermarket to get something to eat. Bored? Go see your friends or go see a movie. 

On the flip side, driving can also be extremely dangerous. Drunk driving is a bigger issue now than ever before. According to the NHTSA, on average there is approximately 1 alcohol-impaired-driving fatality every 45 minutes in the United States.

Just because your car might have some cool safety features doesn’t mean it is foolproof. Always be careful when you get into your driver’s seat. Driving can arguably be considered one of the biggest milestones of adolescence. Enjoy it.