Most students are taught that driving is a  dangerous task; however, after much practice at the wheel, it’s easy to get to a point where the driver feels so comfortable with the responsibility that  he or she becomes unconscious of it.  Students at Wakefield HS, coming off of the heels of the Celebrate My Drive Campaign are taught through many media outlets that  being a defensive driver can help drivers and passengers stay out of danger.

Learning necessary driving skills during the first two years of driving is critical for new drivers. According to the Foundation for Traffic Safety the leading cause of death for teens, ages 16-20, is car accidents. On average 5,600 teens die every year from crashes.

Crashes have affected Wakefield in particular. Junior Luke Watson brought the problem front and center last school year when he collided with another car in the front of the school on Wakefield Pines Drive.

“I was pulling out into an intersection and I couldn’t see the car coming and I drove straight through. The car hit me and I flipped,” said Luke Watson, junior.

Watson was in one of the more dramatic accidents and this had a big affect on how he drives today.

“I always check both ways two or three times before crossing an intersection and I drive more cautiously,” said Watson.

Drivers education is a course that all teen drivers must take before they get their learner’s permit. It is split into a classroom portion and an on the road driving portion. During this time drivers education instructors instill good driving etiquette.

“The students learn driver’s safety during the classroom portion of driver’s education,” said Samuel Bliga, driver’s education instructor.

Bliga and other instructors use tools such as videos to help the students understand the importance of driver’s safety before getting out on the road.

“The instructors showed us a video about teens in a car that got in a deadly crash.” said Michael McKenzie, a recent driver’s education student. “After watching the video I realized that life can happen in the blink of an eye.”

Driving safely can be hard at times especially with all of the temptations like as driving while using a phone and drunk drivers.

According to Injury Prevention and Control almost 30 people die every day from crashes involving an impaired driver and twenty three percent of car crashes involved the use of a cell phone.

“I challenge my drivers on the last day of the driving portion to go up to the speed limit, which is seventy, and try and text their best friend,” said Bliga.

While this tactic may seem extreme it lets the students experience the danger of texting while driving first hand.

Educating teens about this issue is not lost at WHS. During the 2013 and 2014 school year Wakefield participate in the Celebrate My Drive competition to help promote driver safety and win the school one hundred thousand dollars. The money may be nice but during the competition over five million safe driving commitments were made.

“Celebrate My Drive was started by State Farm who is concerned with the statistics and the number of teen accidents that are on the road. Recently we have had a rash of accidents in Wake County so it is important to raise awareness on practicing safe driving,” said Assistant Principle Vivian Wells, leader of the Celebrate My Drive campaign for Wakefield.

Other campaigns that promote safe driving include the Just Think First campaign, also supported by Wells, which includes a series of videos.

“Just Think First started in 2006 after we had a rash of student deaths,” said Wells. “We had nine students killed in car accidents in eighteen months. We felt so strongly that we need to do something so we started just think first and decided that kids in high school are exposed to so many things that are dangerous and can take their lives and yet they aren’t being educated on it. In this program we were able to tackle drunk driving and drugs.”

Driving safely can be a hard task, but students are open to many resources and are given the tools to do it. Driving safely can come down to just driving slower.

“If I had to give one word of advice to new drivers it would be that speed kills,” said Bliga.