Behind every ride

Behind
every ride.

I don’t drive. However, that does not mean that
driving safety has an influence on my life. Behind every ride is a
life, or multiple lives. Most of these rides happen successfully,
without any problem. However, the rides that aren’t successful
remain in our memory, whenever we pass by an intersection where the
ride went awry, when we see the pictures of people we loved, when we
hear a song that we know they loved. Then the thought of that ride
comes back once again, as fresh as if it happened yesterday. There
are so many moments where life just progresses normally. It only
takes a few of those to change a life. The moments when a ride goes
wrong happens in an instant. But these moments remain with us for a
lifetime. These are the moments that remind us of the impermanence
of human life, this fragile existence.

I’m from California, however formerly living in
Tokyo, Japan, I’ve become accustomed to using trains and buses to
get around, instead of using a car. That does not mean that I never
ride cars; I occasionally use cabs to get around if I’m in a rural
area.

In those moments, I ponder how a simple
distraction, a simple mistake, a simple deviation from normal has the
potential to be disastrous. On numerous occasions, I visited
Hokkaido, a prefecture in the north of Japan known for its beautiful
snow, cold weather and seafood. Naturally, Hokkaido draws many
people to its beauty. However, this is also the prefecture with the
greatest traffic accident fatality rate, and this is partly
attributable to the high speeds at which people drive at in Hokkaido,
since it is the most rural prefecture in Japan. In many areas,
locals drive at least 20 km/h over the posted speed limit, and it’s
not common to see people driving 100 km/h in an area posted for 60
km/h.

In so many of these accidents, lives could’ve
been saved if the drivers in question had been driving more slowly.
People need to be aware that an accident can happen in an instant,
and that the value potentially lost in an accident far exceeds the
value that is to be gained by saving a few minutes by driving
quickly. I am certain that this is also a problem in rural parts of
North America as well. In order to drive awareness regarding this
problem, there needs to be frequent calls to the public to drive
safely. Positive reinforcement of safe driving would also be a good
idea. How can we incentivize safe driving? Perhaps data from
people’s cars or mobile devices can be used to tell if someone is
driving safely, and rewards can then be allocated to these safe
drivers. This use of data may drive privacy concerns, however it may
prove to be very effective in encouraging safe driving. Regardless
of the approach, drivers need to be encouraged to practice safer
driving.