Live Long and Drive Safe

Live
Long and Drive Safe

Zachery
R Semones

The
importance of drivers ed is to ensure that not only we make it
home safely, but others on the road do too. It does not matter how
safe you are while driving if other drivers on the road are not
driving responsibly. Someone following all the rules and precautions
while driving can easily be stricken by another driver who was
texting or under the influence. Ensuring the safety of those around
us is everyone’s job. The best step that can be taken to reduce the
number of deaths is education. Education needs to be more then facts,
or bullet points on a flyer. Drivers ed needs to impact the
human dimension of emotions. Human emotions are what separates us
from other species. The most impactful drivers’ education I have
received came from videos. Watching these videos of average people
who are just like me become victims to others not following rules of
the road struck my emotions in the core of my existence. If I were
ever responsible for severely injuring someone because I could not
wait until arriving at my destination to check a text, I would not be
able to live with myself. Not everyone has the same emotional
equivalency and will not respond to these videos in the same manor,
but it is a start. The most impactful training relies on reaching
peoples emotions. By stimulating the emotions of just a few is a
start. Those few most then be persuaded by the same training to pass
on their understanding and reasoning of why they decided to take more
precautions while driving to others. Common knowledge in the world of
advertising is that the best advertisement is word of mouth. People
talking to other people and spreading what they know. This is how we
will reach more and more people every year to educate on driver
safety.

I
was in a car accident my junior year of high school. On a rainy
October day on 2010 I was in the middle of a four-car accident. An
early release day from school had all the students rushing home. As I
was coming over a slight hill the driver in front of me, who was on
his phone, rear ended the car in front of him. Due to the poor
weather conditions and limited amount of reaction time from the other
driver not hitting his breaks I hydro planned into him. I saved up
for nearly a year working my job at a restaurant to buy my truck of
which I was so proud of. The damage to my truck was devastating and
would take me months to earn the money for repairs.

Steps
I will take to drive safe have been never using my phone while
driving, always obeying posted speed limits, and most importantly
having concern for others around me. It is not up to only me and is
why I share my knowledge of drivers safety with anyone willing to
listen.