Driving The Fear

When I was in middle school I had a six-grade teacher who told the math class that she taught tell us that the most dangerous thing she does everyday is get in her car and drive. I did not understand what she meant by that until I was sixteen years old. When I was sixteen years old I did not drive but I was in a car with my cousin on the way to the mall as a passenger when she T boned someone in another vehicle. I luckily survived with a busted lip from the airbag hitting my braces and no broken ribs. Another time when I was twenty-three years old on the way back from a road trip again as a passenger a deer ran in front of our vehicle on my side but my seatbelt was on and my fiancé used his arm to catch me from going forward. I did not drive much before but after that accident I decided that teacher from middle school was right about driving It is the most dangerous thing in the world and I did not want any part of it any longer. My fiancé told me tales of his younger sister when she was sixteen years old passing away and the other survivors in the vehicle became severely handicapped after the accident. The driver decided to recklessly drive and endangered everyone inside the vehicle. She would have been thirty years old now if she had survived. I relied on everyone and had to work around their schedules in order to get somewhere. I felt like an inconvenience but whenever I got inside a vehicle even as a passenger other people felt my anxiety asking if I was hit on the right side because I tensed up when cars came from the right side of me. I was too nervous to even go down a street to buy a soda from a local gas station or practice driving around a block. The only thing that made me get back in the car to drive was when I was in clinicals for nursing school where we had to wake up at five o clock in the morning to make it to clinicals at six o clock in the morning. I relied on the fact I no longer wanted to inconvenience people and relied on the comfort that there will be very few people on the road and I practiced the route days before so I made sure to know how to get where I needed to go. I stayed on the phone with my fiancé as he drove in front of me so I followed him until my destination until I felt comfortable to go by myself. My mom always told me that driving is like having a pair of legs and those legs take you to where you want to go but if you don’t drive then it’s like not having legs because you can still get where you need to but it would be much more difficult and once you drive it’s just like walking or riding a bicycle. I feel much more confident now that I drive myself to school and back home but I recognize that many others do not consider where others may be at in life and driving is still dangerous in many aspects such as drunk drivers or drivers with road rage or simply reckless drivers along with student drivers who may be visually impaired or student drivers that may need extra practice. What steps can be taken to have safer driving and reduce death rates on the road? In my opinion we can all do many things to ensure safety of others and ourselves when on the road. The number one thing is to know the rules of the road and know your limitations such as if you are not comfortable driving on the highway yet then take more side streets until you are comfortable and to plan your route ahead of time so you know where you are going and how to get there and to always pay attention to your front, rear and side mirrors. Watch for incoming traffic, follow the rules, know the rules. Never drink and drive and stay off your phone when driving. Do not be a distracted driver and remain calm yet alert. Do not drive when you are sleep deprived or on substances that may affect driving such as alcohol or other drugs that may impair driving and make sure you are wearing your glasses if you need to and know how to properly operate your vehicle. Always make sure your vehicle passes inspection as well as operates properly and when you get in your car you must recognize that driving is the most dangerous thing you can do but do not let the fear paralyze you and know that you are responsible for others as well as yourself so we as a collective society must take the highest priority to make sure we are safe drivers so we can all come home to our families at the end of the day.