HOW TO PREVENT RECKLESS DRIVING

In America more than 33% of motor vehicle crashes result. More than 13,000 preventable deaths each year because someone wanted to speed, or text back their friend, or eat a snack while driving. 13,000 people that could have still been with us if those drivers just took a second to think of something other than what they wanted at the moment. In this essay I will talk about my personal experiences with reckless driving as well as what we can do when we see it.

Driver education, although critical, is not good enough to defend against the dangers of reckless driving. The number one thing that creates reckless driving is phones, texting, calling, etc. I’m sure whatever you are doing on your cell phone can wait until you reach your destination without putting anyone else in harm’s way. Everyone knows that you’re not supposed to use your phone while driving, however almost everyone I know does. We need to start asking ourselves why? After driving for a while people begin to get cocky and believe that they can take their eyes off of the road for a second to answer a text, but in that second so many lives could be affected if the driver gets distracted and hits someone or something. I have just gotten my license and am terrified of using my phone while driving, however I cannot say that I will feel the same in a few years. People need to start paying attention to their surroundings instead of paying so much attention to their phones. Driver education has done a great job with pushing young drivers to not use their phones, however I think it would also be beneficial to push adult drivers the same way, because when you are a new driver all that information about car crashes and texting and driving is fresh in your brain and I think that in order to reduce the number of deaths caused by reckless driving we as a community need to continue to keep pushing out that information, even to the adults.

I, myself, have been the victim of it. When I was about 11 or 12 years old I was driving to my cousin’s house with my two younger sisters, and my mom. Everything was going according to plan until we heard a loud bang, and my mom stopped driving. We had just been rear-ended as a result of the person behind us texting and driving. When my mom and the person who hit us had gotten out of the car they discussed and he admitted that he had been texting and driving and didn’t realize my mom had put her brakes on and by the time he noticed, it was too late, he had already crashed into us. Being rear-ended may not have been a big deal, except for the fact that my mom’s car was totaled, because we were all fine, but that could have easily been a head-on collision or a t-bone collision resulting in serious, possibly permanent injuries to everyone involved. Imagine that, in the blink of an eye your life and many others could be changed in the blink of an eye simply because someone decided that their phone was more important than the lives of everyone else on the road.

I feel that technology has come far enough that we can create something similar to the breathalyzer test for alcoholics before they drive, but with phones. Like you have to put your phone away before you can even start the car, and gps is all on the car’s dashboard so that is not a valid excuse to have your phone. We could also make the compartment or the phone aux cord accessible so that people can still listen to their desired music while being safe on the road. However, it is even sad that we have to practically force the phones out of drivers hands, when the risk of crashing should be a good enough reason to put the phone down and focus on the road and your surroundings. For example when Iget in my car, before I even put the car in drive and drive off I put my phone on the aux cord, play my favorite music so I won’t have to worry about changing it while driving and toss it onto the passenger seat so I am not tempted to use it while I should be focusing on the road and paying attention to my surroundings. I think that if everyone participated in this practice roads would be much safer and new drivers, such as myself would not be as nervous about driving. There would also be less car crashes, and injuries/deaths related to car crashes. As a new driver on the road whenever I am already nervous to be driving, however when I see people driving with their phones in their hands it only makes me more nervous.