Reckless Driving and Its Preventability

Reckless
Driving and Its Preventability

I met my friend Alex
in ballet class. She was a beautiful dancer with an incredible heart.
We danced together for a few years before she began dancing with
another studio. Some years had passed before I ran into her again at
a Future Business Leaders of America competition, waiting in line at
the concession stand. She was standing in front of me, one dollar
short of a Rice Krispy Treat. I stepped forward and handed the
cashier the few dollars I had and added a bag of Chex Mix to it. We
split the snacks evenly and promised to do the same at the
competition the following year. Not six months after that, however, I
saw it on the news. There was a car accident the night before: Alex
and her mom were headed home from dance when they were hit head-on by
a reckless drunk driver who had passed onto the wrong side of the
highway. Alex was 15 when she died. Reckless driving is devastating
to the United States because it is a preventable issue that affects
an unacceptable number of families.

Ignorant and
reckless driving can be prevented in a variety of ways. Standard ways
of preventing such driving are making the penalties of driving
recklessly and/or under the influence well known and reporting
suspicious/dangerous driving. These are the ways that schools teach
students to prevent ignorant driving, but there are other, more
effective ways of eliminating this problem. One way to prevent
specifically drunk driving, according to the CDC, is ignition
interlocks. These locks are built into the cars of known offenders
and keep them from driving if the BAC (blood alcohol content) is
higher than 0.02% (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Another effective method is to make education and rehabilitation for
repeat offenders readily available. According to an article titled
Recognizing, Managing and Containing the “Hard Core Drinking
Driver,” “a driver would have to commit between 200 and 2000
repetitions of impaired driving violations to statistically generate
one arrest” (Whites). Someone who drinks and/or recklessly drives
between 200 and 2,000 times is likely to be classified as an addict.
By making alcohol rehabilitation and reckless driving education
accessible, we can reduce the number of dangerous drivers. As the
Foundation for Alcohol Responsibility put it, “treatment is
critical as it helps keep the drunk driver from repeating the
behavior by addressing underlying factors that lead to DUI, thereby
protecting him or her and also protecting the public” (Alcohol
Treatment and Rehabilitation). While this concept specifically refers
to drunk driving, the same can be assumed of reckless drivers:
providing educational and rehabilitational opportunities for reckless
drivers can limit the number of people who endanger others on the
road.

The effects of
reckless driving can be felt across the world. With stories like
Alex’s, it is important to spread awareness of dangerous driving
and its costs. As someone who has seen the effects of reckless drunk
driving, I know that something needs to be done to prevent future
tragedies. Yesterday, I might have lost a friend, but today, I will
encourage others to spread the word and keep roads safe for teens
like Alex and me. I will follow the laws and advocate for higher
standards of drivers ed and rehabilitation. If you want to know
where you can find me in the meantime, I’ll be eating a Rice Krispy
Treat and a bag of Chex Mix that should have been shared with Alex.

Works Cited

Alcohol Treatment and Rehabilitation. “Alcohol Treatment and
Rehabilitation.” Responsibility.org,
www.responsibility.org/end-drunk-driving/solutions/treatment-and-rehabilitation/.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “What Works: Strategies
to Reduce or Prevent Drunk Driving.” Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/strategies.html.

Whites, William L., and David L. Gasperin. “Recognizing, Managing
and Containing the ‘Hard Core Drinking Driver’* .” Alcoholism
Treatment Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 3, 2007, pp. 113–132.,
www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/2007HardCoreDrinkingDriverProfile.pdf.