Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself.

It’s ridiculous that these numbers are this high.

I’m looking at the front page of this essay and I’m floored by the fact that we can even compare driving deaths to War deaths. Clearly, even if these are far from being accurate, there is something wrong. Oddly enough, just seeing this statistic that “In America, an average of 34,000 people die each year as a result of driving. […More than] the total number of American soldiers who have died from war in Iraq and Afghanistan combined,” and those wars lasted many years… This is just an average of One year of reckless driving.

That number doesn’t even take into account the injuries that occur. The CDC.gov reports that a staggering “THREE MILLION people are nonfatally injured in motor vehicle crashes” each year. Imagine the life-altering damage that can be caused on both ends – or multiple ends – of the accident(s).

So, what do we do? Well, If you’ve read these few lines, like I read them initially on the essay page, you’ve just been educated. And if you’ve felt some sort of impact by these numbers, you can say that this education has done its job. Driver education is the step before the first step in driving in a safer world. Why change something if there’s nothing wrong in the first place?

In Florida, billboards are really good at scaring people to not text and drive. I actually think it’s really effective! However, we have to reach a wider audience than just the scaredy cats, like me. I think that we should choose people for random driver tests, similar to how being selected for jury duty works. If you have a drivers license, have been driving for more than a year, haven’t been tested in the past year, then you should be tested. Especially the elderly, if you’re asking for my two cents. Virtual reality can provide different scenarios that would require specific action before it happens in real life. Phones should also have a MANDATORY lockdown feature.

I personally had a bad experience just six months after I started driving my first car. I T-Boned another car at an intersection rushing to make a yellow light, and the other car was trying to do the same on the opposite side’s left turn light. Boom. Totaled. I admit, and testify, that it is really easy to drive recklessly. I just get so comfortable when I shouldn’t be, behind a two-ton machine that can turn into a weapon at any point.

Letter to self: Put the phone down!! Think about those around you. “…in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2: 3-4 NIV).
Letter to others: We’re in this together. Let’s try to challenge others with the stats we’ve learned and, more importantly, model what it looks like to drive safe.