Your Fate Is in Your Hands: Lose Your Blind Trust in Other Drivers

Your
Fate Is in Your Hands: Lose Your Blind Trust in Other Drivers

Hailey
Nguyen

On
a typical drive home, you may cross paths with hundreds of cars.
However, it only takes one mistake to cause an accident you can’t
walk away from. But what if that mistake was preventable? It just so
happens that the overwhelming majority of accidents are preventable.
Driving distracted, impaired, or reckless are among the most common
causes of driving-related deaths.

Educating
drivers on common errors, risky behaviors, and responsible driving is
crucial to preventing common mistakes. For many, understanding the
consequences and risks is enough to encourage safer driving choices.
For example, when faced with the facts about how much safer it is to
wear a seatbelt, it doesn’t make any sense not to wear one!
Ensuring that all drivers on the road are well-informed is the first
step towards reducing the number of deaths as a result of driving.

To
make the roads safer, drivers ed has to go beyond why drivers
shouldn’t make these mistakes to begin with. One such way is by
emphasizing safer alternatives to poor choices commonly made by
drivers. This could range from making ride-sharing services more
accessible to drunk drivers or pushing for hands-free calling
capabilities in cars. Educating drivers that there are practical and
safer alternatives is just another way drivers ed is incredibly
important in reducing the number of deaths as a result of driving.

When
I was a new driver, I was stopped at a red light when a car
rear-ended me. Luckily, no one was hurt and there was little damage,
but it made me think that when accidents aren’t your fault, they’re
inevitable. However, with more experience, I may have seen how fast
the car was coming and even pulled off to the side of the road
avoiding the collision. This accident led me to the most important
lesson I have learned as a driver – expect other drivers to make
mistakes.

To
be a safe driver, you have to be prepared for another driver to not
brake in-time or even swerve into your lane. In reducing the number
of deaths related to driving, drivers should lose their blind trust
in other drivers. Having an awareness of the warning signs of
potentially dangerous drivers is one step towards keeping the roads
safer. But knowing what to do when you see an unsafe driver on the
road is just as important.

Say
on your way home, you see a car that is erratically swerving. What do
you do? If you do nothing and just stay away from the car, you’ll
probably make it home alright. But because you didn’t say
something, that car caused a fatal crash hours later. A step I can
take to be a safer driver as well as help others become safer on the
road is safely contacting the police when I see something dangerous
and encouraging others to do so too. Ultimately, helping other
drivers on the road makes it safer not only for myself but also for
everyone else.