If You Care, Speak

Let’s face it, people are stupid. We saw a clear example of this less than a month ago, when five billionaires died trying to explore the Titanic by controlling their submarine with a video game controller – and their sub only had one small window anyway. They were ridiculed all over the internet for their lack of insight, and it’s very easy to understand why. 

What people don’t understand, however, is that negligent driving is just as senseless of an act as what these five billionaires did. Being reckless and swerving between lanes is comparable to throwing the very video game controller that controls your submarine. Texting and driving makes you drive just as poorly as someone trying to direct a submarine without experience. Ignoring the rules of driving is just like ignoring common sense, which is what those within the submarine did. Thinking you’re above the danger of driving, that nothing will happen to you, is the exact same mindset those billionaires had. 

But there is a way to prevent this ignorance – in driving, at least – and it’s called driver’s education. This is a crucial class for every high school curriculum. Unlike other topics, like chemistry and calculus that you’ll most likely never use, driver’s education actually teaches content relevant to a teenager’s life. It teaches content that could save a teen’s life. This class strikes the fear of God into a kid every time they think about driving (or at least my class did), so that they actually take learning the fundamentals seriously. But developing an in-depth understanding of the rules of driving is only the first step in reducing the number of driving-related deaths. 

Knowing the fundamentals doesn’t matter if you don’t care about the fundamentals. Just because someone knows not to text and drive, doesn’t mean they’ll follow that guidance. Just because someone knows speeding is risky, doesn’t mean they’ll obey that rule. For someone to genuinely care, they have to hear it from someone they genuinely care about. Someone they admire. Maybe this is a family member, close friend, even a celebrity or politician. It’s never an expert. To the average person, an expert’s word is flat and impersonal. They might listen, but they won’t take the advice to heart or even think about applying it. For them to truly want to change their behaviors, they have to hear it from someone whose words they care about. 

This means each of us has a responsibility to share what we know about driving safely. When we witness poor driving from someone close to us, we need to inform them of the facts and push them to change their habits. I’ve done my best to do this myself, through the time I spend online. Much of my communication with other people is through text, and there have been several times where someone says, “sorry for being slow to reply, I’m driving right now!” After something like that happens, I try my best to let my friend know how dangerous texting and driving is, and in my experience, that has been very effective. Now I see this more often: “sorry for replying late, had to drive home!”

Part of the reason I feel so strongly about ensuring safe driving, is because reckless driving has had a drastic effect on my mother’s life. When she was in college, she was in a car accident that could’ve easily taken her life. The man who hit her was speeding and failed to yield when making a left turn, when my mother was going straight through an intersection. The front end of the man’s car hit the driver’s side of my mother’s car head on. Her bumper was found 300 feet away. They had to pull her out of the back window of her car, due to the driver’s door being too crushed to open. 

She was actually driving her boyfriend’s car, which had these new things called airbags. Had she been in her own car, she would’ve died. And her boyfriend’s family was then so kind as to sue her for damaging their car, when it hadn’t even been her fault. That only added an extra level of stress to the months that followed. 

That accident left her with a broken jaw, hand, pelvis, displaced ribs, injured knees, burned arm, and most seriously, a brain injury. Afterwards, she had to relearn how to walk and sit through months of physical therapy. She couldn’t work or drive, and she was forced to change her major, since her brain injury left her unable to complete her pre-med classes. She still has issues with memory and speech today, due to her brain injury. Reckless driving has had an unprecedented effect on my mother’s life. 

Sorry if this essay has seemed blunt or harsh, but this is a matter of life and death, and sometimes you have to be “out there” to make any change. Pretty, simple, appeasing words rarely catch anyone’s attention, and this is an issue that needs much more attention than it gets. I hope this was able to shift some viewpoints, even just a little, because who knows. This might end up saving your life.