Safe Driving Awareness

Driver education is significantly essential. Many young adults in this generation are driving behind the wheel with little to no experience. Completing driver’s education can lower one’s chances of getting tickets, accidents, or even making irresponsible decisions on the road. This quick and simple course can teach young adults how to take care of themselves and be more observant of others while on the road. One thing that is important when reducing the number of deaths as a result of driving is “defensive driving”. Defensive driving is the process of analyzing specific situations and choosing the smartest and safest maneuver to avoid any accidents.

There are many steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving. Many young drivers distract themselves from their phones or even with their friends while in the car. In other cases, some guys think it’s impressive to speed or drive recklessly because it’s “cool”. One way to dispose of this poor habit of texting and driving is to turn on and do not disturb. Do not disturb or DND is a feature that most phones have which stops notifications, alerts, and calls from making any noise, vibration, or lighting up the phone screen when the screen is locked. Having this feature turned on can stop a lot of young adults from having the need to check their notifications while driving. Well, what if it’s an emergency and they can’t hear the notification? Well with do not disturb you can customize it to only get notifications from specific people. For example, you can set it to only receive notifications/alerts from your parents and or siblings.

Another problem that is seen on the road is speeding among young drivers. A lot of young drivers think it’s cool and a good way to impress your friends. However, in reality, it’s very detrimental to the driver, passenger, and other drivers on the road. To prevent this from happening, I would encourage parents to download Life360 on their child’s phones. This app helps parents monitor their child’s speed while they are not in the car with them. For example, if the parents are in North Carolina, while their child has the car in South Carolina, the parents can track the car and monitor how fast their child is going via notification. Having this downloaded on their phone will make the child more aware and observant of their speed and will most likely prevent them from speeding.

Common distractions on the road can sometimes include drowsy driving. According to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that “About 1 in 10 car crashes are due to drowsy driving, and young drivers, people between the ages of 16–24, account for more than 50 percent of them.” This notion often creates a lot of controversies mainly because at times you have no option but to drive when you’re fatigued. Moreover, parents, in general, should be making sure that their child is getting enough hours of sleep before they hit the road. If this isn’t enough for some, we should encourage teenagers or young adults to consume caffeinated drinks to increase their energy and vigilance. Occasionally stopping or taking breaks is also a great idea when it comes to drowsy driving. However, if it is possible, young adults should stop themselves if they seem too tired to drive.

I become very passionate when it comes to raising awareness of irresponsible driving because my friend and I just received our licenses. Moreover, a friend of mine got into a terrible car accident resulting in a trip to the ER and a totaled car. This could all have been avoided if he drove the speed limit and avoided swerving in and out of traffic. This comes back to my statement above about speeding to look “cool”. There’s no looking cool when someone is in the hospital. Seeing how easy it is to be in his situation, I take extra precautions when driving to avoid any incidents. My dad also used to speed and race with others quite often and landed in the hospital a couple of times. I definitely learned not to speed from him because it traumatized him and myself.

Some steps that I’ve taken recently to become a safer driver is taking advantage of cruise control. Cruise control is a feature in many cars that keep the car at a specific speed. Some advanced cars including mine can also automatically slow down when cars begin to approach ahead. I would also like to emphasize that there is no need to turn off safety features like traction control. That is there for our safety and to keep all four tires from swerving. Almost all companies implement safety features into their cars. Let’s do our best and utilize them!

I also want to thank you for this scholarship opportunity. It means a lot!