People Not Numbers

People Not Numbers

In the year of 2019, an estimated 38,800 people lost their lives in a car accident. That’s 38,800 children that lost their parents, parents that are grieving the loss of their child, husbands that are left without a wife, wives that became widows, and siblings that lost their best friends. We read the fatalities as a number, but that’s not all it is, these numbers are people. In fact, I asked ten people in my class if they knew someone who’d been injured or died in a car accident. Ten people said yes. This is a small scale example that shows just how many people are affected by unsafe driving. I get it, it can be easy to grow impatient when we’re late to work and the car in front of us seems to be driving as slow as they possibly can. But in reality, that “slow as they possibly can,” is most likely the speed limit. Things as simple as speeding while you’re in a hurry have caused people to lose their lives. It’s the little things, the things that we don’t even think about, that’re causing people to not make it home to their families.

Personally, I have lost one person to a car accident and know many others that have suffered long lasting injuries and trauma. As a teenager my father sat in the passenger seat of his friend’s car, not thinking anything of it. His friend wrecked and they both paid the price. Now he has to explain to airports that a detector may go off because of the metal plate in his arm before he boards planes. My Brother’s childhood best friend wears a pin with the letter “D” on it, honoring his brother who died in a car wreck five years ago. That same friend is also paralyzed in his right arm because of a different car accident. Everyday I leave my house I pass a wooden cross stuck in the ground where a car ran off into the ditch. The cross has the name of someone that was loved and mourned by so many people. These people that we read as numbers on a statistics chart aren’t just random individuals, they’re our loved ones. They are why we can no longer be silent, we must speak up and be the change that America needs.

Educating and practicing safe driving will save the lives of so many people, including our loved ones. Numbers show that as the amount of people who attend driving education classes and complete driver’s safety courses grows, the number of fatalities reduce. Educating America about these numbers and tragic deaths due to car accidents will promote safe driving and potentially reduce the number of fatalities and injuries even more. Being conscious about your driving is the first step to making a change. Things as simple as putting your phone on silent and not touching it while driving can save your life and the lives of those around you. Uniting and becoming the change of safe driving is going to save so many lives. No one truly wants to talk about how many people have died or been injured in car accidents. It’s an uncomfortable conversation to say the least, but in order to spark a change, we have to spark the conversation.