Make roads safe again, for the first time.

Drivers ed is the number one way one can prevent driving related deaths, knowing what your are doing and actually practicing what you know are how one person can prevent many accidents, and if everyone were to practice what they know there would be few to no accidents, let alone those which result with death. Now, of course, there are times there accidents are not caused by the driver, whether or not they are educated, for example the breaks stop working or your gas pedal starts acting up, there’s no traction due to rain, and more, and, unfortunately, those things happen and those things lead to accidents which can lead to someone’s untimely demise, so it is for that reason that I say there would be few accidents, and not simply state that 100% of accidents are due to a driver not knowing what they were doing. A driver may not know the difference between going 30 mph and going 40 mph; on average, a person has a 20% chance of dying when being hit by a car which is going 30 miles an hour, however that percentage rate goes up to 45% when someone is going 40 (Crossley and Schmitt). There are several steps which can, or at least should, be taken in order to prevent fatal accidents, an increase of padding within cars to protect passengers and drivers alike, barriers along all roads to protect pedestrians, stricter speed enforcement regulations, special and separate roads for Amish carts and bicycles, and more. Moving on to the third question, yes, I have experienced a car accident before, while I was a passenger. I was on the way to a lesson, talking to my mother, the driver, about my grades in school, she turned to peek at an email I had pulled up and when she looked back at the road the cars in front of her were stopped, and though she tried we were to close to stop in time. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the car we hit was totaled and it even bumped into a car ahead of them. It was a terrifying experience and I haven’t seen my mom look at a phone while driving since. Although I already take part in several actions to be as safe of a driver as possible, there’s always room for improvement. For example there are times where I don’t always immediately see that someone’s brake lights have come on, and that leads to some troubles, but I have been lucky enough not to get into an accident because of it, to combat that issue I could frequently check their break lights to see if they’ve come on instead of only looking at the car as a whole to insure there is a safe amount of distance between us or more.

Schmitt, Angie, and Jay Blazek Crossley. “3 Graphs That Explain Why 20 MPH Should Be the Limit on City Streets.” Streetsblog USA, Streetsblog, 31 May 2016, usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-explain-why-20-mph-should-be-the-limit-on-city-streets/.