Safer Driving

Having
educated drivers on the roads means that the rules of the road are
known. Who has right of way, what to do when emergency vehicles
approach, pedestrian laws, etc. This will result in less wrecks
caused by ignorance Driving school also impresses upon its students
the dangers of reckless driving, driving while under the influence,
and driving while on the phone. Ideally this would reduce the
occurrence of all these things thereby reducing accidents.

I
believe that if drunk driving, reckless driving, and driving on you
phone were unnormalized, deaths related to driving would decrease. My
father was part of a jury one time. The case was on the severity of
the punish of a man caught drunk driving. No one was hurt, he was
simply caught breaking the law. The majority of the jury voted to be
lenient because no one was hurt and they felt as though they could
easily be in the same situation. Drunk driving should not be allowed
a free pass just because no one was injured. The normalization of
drunk driving and similar activities means that there are little to
no consequences if disaster strikes.

Steps
that can be taken towards unnormalizing these activities could be to
elevate the punishments for being caught in the act of doing them. If
people were fined for being caught texting and driving, driving under
the influence, and reckless driving, the number of people willing to
do it would decrease.

I
have never experienced a car accident, nor have I experienced a
family member driving recklessly, at least while I was in the car.
Part of this, I believe, is due to the strict rules my parents had
set in place when I got my license. Not only was I following the
state guidelines, but the extra precautions set by my parents. I was
only allowed to ride in the car of someone who had had their license
for at least a year, I was not allowed to drive anyone other than
myself until I had my license for at least a year. I had to set up
all music and GPS functions on my phone before I started my car and
was not allowed to touch my phone while I was driving.

Steps
that I take to insure safe driving are as follows: all GPS and music
functions are set up before I begin driving, I have a holder for my
phone on my dashboard so that I do not have to take my eyes away from
the road to see my directions, I never start my car if people are
unbuckled, I always come to complete stops at stop signs, if I need
to send a text or make a phone call while driving I have my passenger
send the message for me, if I am by myself, I set up the voice
activation feature on my phone. Those are the most common precautions
I take and encourage my friends to take as well.