To the editor:
I am a driver’s education instructor. I spend 10 hours in the front passenger seat of a car while a new driver learns to drive. I take my job very seriously because I have known most of my students since they were 5 years of age or younger. It would make me feel terrible if one of them got in an accident where they were hurt, or even worse, killed. I want them to be safe on the road when they get their licenses and to be responsible drivers.
The reason why I want to write this editorial is to educate parents and new drivers on a law that seems to go unnoticed a lot of the time. I have seen a number of new drivers driving on the road with their classmates or under-aged friends who aren’t in their immediate family soon after receiving their license. The law states that they are not supposed to be doing this for the first nine months of receiving their license. It doesn’t matter if you agree with the law or not, it is still the law and needs to be obeyed. A lot of statistics were looked at and it was determined that new drivers will be safer by obeying this law.
I am pleading with both parents and new drivers to obey this law. I don’t want to see a new driver get injured or have an accident where someone else in the vehicle gets injured who shouldn’t have been in the vehicle in the first place. I don’t want this to happen and I don’t want a new driver or parent to have it on their conscience that they could have prevented a tragedy just by obeying a law or making sure their son or daughter obeyed the law. Nine months is not a long time when compared to a lifetime of a guilty feeling knowing a tragedy could have been prevented.
Lendell Tarr
Nashville Plt.
