Please make it stop.... and bring back drivers ed

Parent Cafe
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<p>Whew. This has been a tough, draining day. The best way to describe it is painfully, painfully sad. First, the funeral. Hundreds of people. It was absolutely packed. And it was so eerily quiet. Usually when there are that many people in there, it is one of the High Holidays and the noise level before services is higher with lots of chatter. This was just… quiet. The young man attended a magnet school and many came to the service (many weariing the balck “remember Sam” tshirts that were printed up yesterday)- A wonderful blend of religions and nationalities, many of whom had probably never set foot in a synagogue before. Someone had made up a large, laminated posterboard of his pictures (also with the “remember Sam” logo in it) and his mom brought the big, signed poster from his bar mitzvah 5 yrs ago. They helped keep ones eyes off the coffin just below. His older brother gave the most poignant speech. Unbelievable. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The rabbi read words written by his mom, chronicalling his life. The one thing that rung in everyone’s ears was the reference to hearing the words… “failed to survive” from the police.</p>

<p>Then on to the cemetary. A huge processional of cars. Here in the south, people stop their cars and pull over when a funeral procession goes by. Many get our of their cars. this was in the middle of rush hour. Now I understand. What a tribute. Very meaningful. </p>

<p>Then, another brief service, and another tribute by one of his best friends, who happens to live in my neighborhood- a kid whose family I am close with, who I watched grow up. The tradition after the service is to take turns putting a shovel full of dirt in the grave (usually with the shovel upside down, signifying that you don’t want to be doing it). The family was unconsolable. It was so painful. The dad (whose birthday it was on the day his son died) thanked all the kids who came, asked them to drive home safely and SLOW DOWN. I chatted with the rabbi, who commented that although we have unfortunately lost several children, this was the first time he had presided over both the baby naming and the funeral of the same kid. He was barely holding it together. I stayed with him for a while. After all, as we say in the field, who counsels the counselors?</p>

<p>Then, a tradition called sitting shiva at the house. My husband and I brought a huge platter of what are known as black and white cookies (they are sort of like a cross between a cookie and the top of a very large cupcake, covered with 1/2 black and 1/2 white icing), chocolate chip cookies and baby eclairs. Tons of other food, but this platter got lots of compliments and disappeared quickly. It made me feel good. I needed to feel good. Thank you, hungry people. The house was packed, but the weather was spectacular (finally cooled down) so after the service (yes, a third service) people could go out on the porch or on the front stoop. Pictures of Sam were everywhere. You’d look, you’d look over at another friend, and you’d cry. So, 6 hours later, I am home. </p>

<p>Thank you all for your kind words. Now go kiss your kids and tell them to SLOW DOWN. Princedog- I am sorry for your harrowing experience and am glad you are ok. Please, tell your friends to SLOW DOWN, even if they are driving at a reasonable rate of speed. I now have a healthy respect for slow pokes on the road. Maybe I will become one of them. There is nowhere that imortant to be that is worth risking ones life.</p>

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<p>This thread is such a good reminder to all of us, to slow down, to watch for the other young people in our community, keep them driving a decent pace and thinking. </p>

<p>So sorry, jym, a hard day, a hard time. Thank you. I loved your description of both the personal and cultural elements in the funeral. And yes, kiss those kids and appreciate their presence.</p>

<p>It could have been my family, my son’s group of friends. The van rolled over on the way home from picking up a friend coming home from Grinnell, when the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Those well trained boys all had their seat belts on, and survived, though my son’s hand is well scarred for life. Luckily his was the only injury. I’m still amazed and thankful when I see them together now, the four still the best of friends. Still nervous as well, when they head off for a weekend at a cabin, driving together. The lesson from that roll over? 9:30 AM is a dangerous time for college students to be driving, a low point in their circadian clock. At midnight that driver would have been more alert. But you never know. </p>

<p>Those boys all had driver’s ed in school, as well as the graduated license. Since then, the district cut driver’s ed, and for my Ds, we paid $360 to a private company for class, plus more for behind the wheel to become licensed. I don’t know what families do that are living lower on the economic scale. Driver’s ed is required to get a licence before age 18 in our state.</p>

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<p>Yes, I actually disagree with how many adults drive, as well. The difference is they usually are less distracted and have better handling skills. But this is another important point. It is extremely important that parents be practicing what they preach. I see this as a real problem. When my mother and I drive, we always drive in the right lane, etc, and she does not take risks. But there are a lot of people out there driving with their teenagers going “don’t do this” and then doing something they shouldn’t do. They’re going to roll their eyes and say, “yeah sure” and think you can do whatever you want on the road. The simple fact is that you can’t and we are all putting ourselves at risk every day by adopting this attitude and allowing it to go unchecked in others.</p>

<p>I come from one of the worst areas to drive, and what you see is ridiculous. It is truly unfortunate that people have, in large numbers, lost perspective to the point where they are willing to risk their lives and the lives of others (when in doubt, my thought is, what if there’s an infant in that car? A toddler? A first grader? Still think cutting them off is a good idea? If you were the one driving your baby home from the hospital, would you appreciate sharing the road with the driver you are?) in order to shave a few seconds of time off their morning commute. Because you see people run lights, cut people off, whatever, and the truth is, whatever they’re thinking, they saved literally about 30 seconds. This is not a logical oppurtunity cost. You’re getting literally nothing, and engaging in aggressive driving only feeds your frustration. It’s pretty clear to me that the problem is beyond the mechanics of driving - this risky driving behavior and road rage related issues are deeply rooted in other societal factors. </p>

<p>The service sounds like it was beautiful. I hope your community can find some comfort in the days to come. He obviously touched many lives. Please remember the good times. The fragility of human life is very difficult to confront and nobody is perfect. It could have been any of us. I wish you strength in the days to come and if you ever need to talk, feel free to PM me.</p>

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<p>Wow. Thank you all so much. I’m off to bed but will stop and kiss my son on the way. I will also slow down.</p>

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<p>We live on Long Island (Land of a Zillion Cars). Because of the school budget situation, we taught S1 ourselves, but felt he also needed a better teacher than H or me, so contacted several driving schools. We could not find a single advanced or defensive driving school anywhere around here, where, unfortunately, the focus seems to be to GET THAT LICENSE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE! Period. It drives me nuts. Even careful teenage drivers are still inexperienced.
Driving is probably the most important, most dangerous, and most often-used skill they will ever learn. As such, I think the learning aspect is terribly neglected.</p>

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<p>lspf72-
You might want to call the “car control” people (<a href=“http://www.carcontrol.com%5B/url%5D”>www.carcontrol.com</a>) and see if you can get them to come out to your area. The frist time we worked with them, when my older son was leraning to drive, a neighbor contacted them to see if they would come to our area. They told her that if she could get 6 families to participate, they would find a place to do the training. It worked-- we had a bunch of families from the area participate. It was great.</p>

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<p>Thanks, jym-- It’s definitely worth a try. I think every little bit helps if it means keeping that voice of caution in the back of their head.
Just recently I read a short article about how too many parents assume that once their teen has their license, the need for practice is done (my husband is one of these), and often it’s just not true.
I can only imagine what your friends must be going through. It’s heartbreaking.</p>

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<p>jym I’m so sorry you and your friends/community had to experience this. The poor parents; it’s such a high price to pay for one moment of bad judgement.</p>

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<p>Sorry about the death of your son’s friend. Prayers are with you and his family.</p>

<p>With or without drivers ed, teenagers get their driver licenses and have pitifully little experience behind the wheel of a 2000#piece of metal which can travel at speeds approaching 100 mph! I was listening to a radio interview a few years back with a person who had studied accident statistics and the skills needed to become a proficient driver. He determined that it typically takes about 3 years of regular driving to become proficient in the nuances of successful driving. I didnt have a clue and skidded off the road during a light rain between two trees and into a field. Our son totalled a family car within 1 year of getting his license.</p>

<p>Unless we want to radically change the requirements to obtaining a driver license, we need to accept the fact that new drivers are embarking on the most dangerous thing they have done and perhaps will ever do. A very high percentage will have some type of accident and we can only hope that it is not more serious that a parking lot fender bender. Yep, our son had one of those too.</p>

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<p>Ughhh…simply heart crushing. My sympathies as well, Jym. Between the accidents and the suicide you reported earlier in the year, your son’s have had a sobering look at early mortality. So sad, so wrong.</p>

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<p>Check. Actually my younger S and I were talking about this thread last evening. He brought up an interesting point. In CA we have all the graduated licensing procedures already outlined. But he did mention that so much of the training in both driver’s ed and driver’s training is about rules of the road and driving procedures. How to pass the test is the emphasis. Safety is implied, but not really directly addressed.</p>

<p>I asked him whether they showed the “Red Asphalt” type of movies, and he said no. When I had driver’s training through the public school system many years ago, we had those simulation modules where you watched a movie and had to react to various safety scenarios and received a score. Things like a car door opening from a parked car on the right and you’d slow down or anticipating a ball rolling into the street when kids were playing. Lot’s of basic defensive driving safety stuff. Then you’d take the in-class stuff out on the road. </p>

<p>As parents, I believe you really have to pay attention to what they are learning or not. For example with our younger S, the one-on-one 6 hr driver’s training was not the best learning style. He had a hard time dealing with the personality of his trainer while processing the instruction. He rigidly understood all the rules but had a serious failure to understand the rationale behind them. </p>

<p>Worse, he had very little flexibility in applying them to differing scenarios. It was a real challenge for us to help him become a more intuitive driver. We went way beyond the required number of hours for training. We had him driving everywhere, and my H took him to large empty lots and practiced defensive car handling. My H stood in the blind spot of the car to demonstrate what that actually meant because we would see him turn his head but not really look. It was really surprising to us because our experience with our older S was so different. </p>

<p>Fast forward many months, he passes the driver’s license test with a 100%, and then we learn that tripe-A insurance has an additional training module that you can do with your student and receive a 25% discount on the student rate in addition to the good student discount. That was a significant savings, so we required him to do the additional training which meant another delay before he could drive independently with his new license. </p>

<p>The program was virtual interactive software, and it mimicked the type of safety recognition stuff that we used to get in our older driver’s training classes. It was modernized with cell-phone use issues, talking to kids in the car, and the like. Then there was additional on the road training.</p>

<p>My S was not happy about extending his training, but he understood the monetary savings and complied. Most interesting, it forced him to encounter more complex scenarios than anything he had to encounter in his driving around town—even in our traffic congested suburb. Parents also had portions that we had to complete. It is really the kind of instruction that I would’ve expected at some earlier point. I’m all for anything that slows them down. He is now a good driver, and we enforce all the curfews and passenger limitations.</p>

<p>Yep, SLOW DOWN</p>

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Thanks for remembering this, 3K’s. This had been a tough, tough year. There is more on our plate as well, but this isn’t the thread to go into that. Suffice it to say, this year has challenged our stamina.</p>

<p>Our state also has the graduated licensing laws. First 6 mos- only relatives in the car, and there is a limit to the number of passengers as well. Curfew is midnight until they are 18. While this helps some, it is no substitute for experience and good judgement (which unfortunately, we know that teens develop at their own unique pace). Sam was a great, bright kid. Loved everyone and everyone loved him. He was into robotics, video games, and Disney World. No drugs, no alcohol. Just a great kid trying to get back to school on time for a class.</p>

<p>I am glad my kids took the extra defensive driving class. I am also glad our cars have airbags and antilock brakes. When we had to replace our younger s’s car after it was totalled in May (the tractor trailer accident referenced above) we got an older car, but the 2 rules were-- ABS and driver and passenger airbags. We were inflexible about that.</p>

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<p>When my d got her junior drivers license, so did the d’s of a number of my friends. The law said that for the first 6 months, no non-siblings under the age of 21 in the car unless there were a licensed driver over 21 riding gunshot. Two of my friends ignored the law to the extent that they arranged for their daughters to carpool with each other to school! Both were brand new drivers.</p>

<p>Then they turned to me and asked if I intended to enforce the “no passenger” rule from school (i.e. driving friends home from school). I said yes. They asked, “Well, how will you know?” I said, “I may not know. But d knows that if I ever find out, that’s the end of her driving career until she’s 21. Period.”</p>

<p>The cavalier attitude towards driving, even among these otherwise intelligent, educated people just floored me.</p>

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Exactly!! It makes me nuts when friends kids get a speeding ticket, and the friends are more focused on getting a good lawyer to keep it off the kid’s record and to keep insurance rates down than to make their child accept the responsibility of breaking the law and getting a ticket.</p>

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<p>Sorry to bump this thread up, but I was just thinking about Sam and was disheartened to see the thread fading to page 2. I am not ready to forget.</p>

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<p>Jym, just wanted you to know that I have not forgotten about Sam and keep thinking about him and his poor family and how one split second of a mistake can change everything in irreversible ways. Such a tragedy and very sad. And I also think of how it is unfair that some survive such things and some don’t and no rhyme or reason as to who gets a second chance. I saw the photo of Sam’s crash and it looks like my kid’s car after her crash on a highway and she pulled through and lived. Very unfair who gets to, who doesn’t. The brief mistake an inexperienced driver can make can be costly. I hope Sam’s parents will get over the grief but their lives will never be the same. I’m sorry for you and all who knew this teenager who sounds like an amazing kid who had so much left to do and experience.</p>

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<p>Thanks, soozie. Sam’s mom’s name is Susan too. And he died on his dad’s birthday. How will they ever be able to celebrate again? It is just so unfair.</p>

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<p>Yes, I read that it was his dad’s birthday which will always be a sad day for them. I don’t know how they will ever get over it. I imagine with time that their grief moves onto another stage and they can go on but the hole will always be empty. Every tragedy of this sort with young people is so very sad. It can happen to anyone. You can take every precaution with your kids and a fleeting moment can change it all.</p>

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<p>Dear jym626,
I just read the entire thread and wanted to let you know how sorry I am that you, your family, and friends are suffering from the loss of Sam. Thank you for bumping the thread up so more of us can be reminded how fragile these lives are, and how important it is to remind one another to slow down and be safe.
Thoughts and prayers,
Chris</p>

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<p>Thank you for your kind words, pianomom, and soozievt. For now, I find myself driving more slowly. There is nothing that important that I must get to. Even driving to the airport at some ridiculous hour of the morning this morning. We took our time. No rushing. Lots of cars passed us. I’d rather be safe than sorry.</p>

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<p>I think of Sam everytime someone passes me, weaving in and out of the cars in front of me, too. We live near a HS, and it happens often.</p>

<p>Last May our HS quarterback died in a one-car accident. While the community was stunned at the time, I think life has pretty much returned to normal. They had t-shirts printed up for one the football games this fall. What I suggested to my D at the time was that they should have small stickers (like address labels) printed up with his photo, and his birth and death dates, and stick it on the steering wheel of every car in the student parking lot, so every student sees his face when they get behind the wheel.</p>

<p>Something has to get through to these kids that this isn’t some Super Mario game where they get to push a button and get a new life.</p>