Driving Safe Affects Everyone

Kaelan Turner

2020 Driver Ed Online Contest

June 19, y

Driving Safe Affects Everyone

No Matter The Age or Relation

Driving education is an imperative life skill that everyone who is behind the wheel should possess and be able to practice as if it is second nature. It is such a valuable skill, in fact, because accidents caused about 38,000 deaths on the highway in 2019 according to the national safety council. That number is an astronomical amount. Additionally, that number doesn’t show the amount of other lives that were affected. A few examples of affected people would be the immediate family of the person who had passed, sons, daughters, husbands, wives. Unsurprisingly their brothers, sisters and parents would be devastated as well. I say all of these examples to exemplify the real scope of that number of unnecessary loss.

Now the big question becomes this: ‘How can we reduce the number of deaths related to driving?’ This is a very difficult problem to solve because many people, even if they know the rules to keep them safe, won’t follow the rules anyways. This thought at first is upsetting because it makes trying to help the situation seem fruitless. However, if children are taught earlier that being distracted while driving is dangerous, it could have a great impact because that idea was instilled so early. It would have a great impact on the future generations. The second course of action would rely on the example of parents because children are partially affected by their parents in regards to mannerisms and habits. Now the final thing is happening as we speak. The evolution of cars and device technology! Technology will allow for drivers not to take their eyes off of the road and still make a phone call or send a text via their voice thus reducing distracted driving which directly affects the amount of roadway deaths.

I was unfortunately in a car accident at 40 miles per hour. When calculating that potential impact using an online calculator, it indicated that with a fasted seatbelt I would’ve felt a force of 68,893 Newtons. The required amount of force to break a femur is roughly 4,000 Newtons according to the Discovery Channel. I’m simply glad and fortunate that I only popped 4 tires.

Steps I may take to be safer are to not text and drive and when I take a call put the call on speaker-phone so that I don’t need to hold my phone. Other steps may be that I enter all my GPS details before I even start the car so I know exactly where I’m going and I don’t need to enter it while driving. When helping others be safe, I will tell them that they’re being unsafe by using their phone and driving at the same time and if I’m in the car I can text for them instead of them texting and driving and putting everyone in danger.