Safe Driving Essay

Safe driving should be taken more seriously across the US. There is such a great responsibility when getting behind the wheel, if you do not take it seriously it can change everything. If you are not always checked in when driving then your safety, as well as the safety of others could be jeopardized. It takes no longer than seconds to make a mistake that changes a life. One look at your cell phone, one glance over at something that isn’t the road, one single move that takes your eyes and attention off the road ahead. Any of those things could result in minor injuries, or in the worst case; take a life. Every year, the day before prom, my high school would host “Day of Shattered Dreams” on this day the juniors and seniors at the high school participate in multiple seminars telling, but more importantly showing you what can happen if you are impaired and/or distracted behind the wheel. They pick around 4-6 students and staff members to participate in a mock-crash situation and have the fire department, local police, and even local EMS join on this day to make it almost real for everyone. They go through the whole process of identifying people, making arrests of the drivers at fault for being under the influence, and showing mock fatalities. There are also volunteers every year that come in and speak. One of those volunteers is Quinton Higgins. He was a survivor of the Carrollton County bus crash, and I was surprised at how many people hadn’t heard about this before. This was one of the most fatal accidents that happened in US history on May 14, 1988, 24 children and 3 adults died that night because one man decided to drink and drive, going the wrong way down the interstate, and hit this church bus head-on. Now he drives to my high school every year, in his replica of the church bus he was on that night, and tells his story. He places pictures of everyone who died that night on the backs of the seats they were sitting in with a short bio of who they were. This was one of the most eye-opening experiences I have gone through in my whole life. A lot of people go through life thinking bad things don’t happen to people, they think it is just in the movies and books because people don’t talk about all the bad things that do happen. People want to forget all the bad and be left with the good. My question is though, why people wouldn’t want to raise awareness? What if making people more aware would put a stop to bad things that could potentially happen in the future because people weren’t made aware that all actions have consequences. I have had a couple of experiences being in a car accident. On March 26, 2022, at around 9:30 pm, I was driving home, and I was making a protected left via green light off the main highway onto a side road. While I was making my left turn a driver was in a right-hand turning lane across from me and ran her red light because she wasn’t paying attention and struck the rear passenger side door of my car. If this other driver would have been paying attention there would have been no accident, we both luckily had no injuries. Another accident I was involved in not long after that one was a few weeks later. That day my car went into the shop and my mom asked me to get my brother from school, as I was out of the school parking lot onto the road in front of the school around 2:30 pm, traffic stopped, and I was rear-ended because the driver behind me wasn’t paying attention to what was in front of them and had no time to stop once they realized they needed to. When I think about being a safe driver, I think about never having my phone around me while I am driving my vehicle, I put it in my purse behind my seat, or the console of my car. The way I look at it is, that one text or phone call isn’t worth my life, or someone else’s. You can always call or text the person back when you get to where you’re going. My parents have always told me they would rather get a text or a call when I am safe and not driving rather than get a call from the police or the coroner saying I have been in an accident, been killed by distractions of myself or others, or have killed someone by my distraction or lack of responsibility behind the wheel. I would like to thank whoever reads this essay and hope that it impacts you the way all these events have impacted me and makes you think twice about your decisions when being behind the wheel. Always drive safe!