One morning recently I was stopped on Washington Boulevard behind a yellow school bus with its STOP sign open and jutting out above the busy morning traffic. While the children disembarked and scrambled across the street to their middle school, a woman behind me in a min-van with two children and a dog began laying on the horn. I looked in my rear view mirror to see her waving frantically for me to go around the bus, which I could clearly see was still letting off the school kids. I opened my window and pointed to the STOP sign on the side of the bus. Undeterred, she sped around me, into the lane of westbound traffic, barely missing a woman with a stroller accompanying her daughter to the school. The minivan never wavered from her course, continuing down the street doing 35 mph in a 20-mph school zone. The crossing guard waved his sign at her, but to no avail. OK, let’s cut the driver some slack, perhaps she was late for the operating room to perform brain surgery–or for her manicure appointment.
@normal:”That stuff happens every day, all over the city, all over the country.” Exactly my point. What did her children learn in that mini-van that day? That it is OK to speed when you are late for an appointment? That it is not illegal to go around a STOP sign when you feel you have stopped long enough? That the safety of other people’s children is not as important as getting her own child to gymnastics on time? That yelling and swearing at other drivers is perfectly acceptable behavior in this world? That driving laws and Rules of the Road are for everyone else to follow? The two children who were passengers in that mini-van this morning had a hell of an education before they even reached their destination.
I applaud Secretary of State Jesse White and his push to tighten regulations on teen driving: longer length of time for learner’s permits, an earlier nighttime curfew, and restrictions on the number of teen passengers in each car. These proposed changes will make a huge difference in that important learning period our children need before we send them out on the nation’s roads with the rest of the driving world. But what about the things they learn at home? The driving habits they witness each time we drive them to football practice or the grocery store? Why has safe driving become the responsibility of Jesse White and the State of Illinois alone? What happened to our responsibilities as parents to teach our children well and keep them safe?
Think of the repercussions each time you go over the speed limit or blow through a yellow light. Stop signs are not optional–you actually have to stop before the line. Let your children see you kindly give pedestrians the right of way. Once in awhile, let someone turn into your lane of traffic after they pull out of a parking spot–what’s a few more seconds? Buckle up your seat belt before you pull out of the driveway. Let the cellphone ring and return their call later. Turn on the music, meditate, have a conversation with your child while waiting at a train crossing–we’ve all witnessed the tragic repercussions of impatience there. In an effort to make the roads safer as a whole, we first have to make our children better, safer, more conscientious drivers at home. No matter if the child is 6 or 16, we as adults are still their best source of knowledge.