This Can Happen to You

Starting out I don’t really know what can be considered as a car accident. My mom has accidentally hit the back of a bus, someone hit my mom’s parked car while I was there, and in my own driving life I have hit a parked car as well. In these instances no one was hurt in any way possible, just mainly shocked and surprised it happened to them. I think some of the more major accidents are caused by people’s irresponsibility but these day to day accidents can happen at any time but there are still ways to prevent them.

I do feel like my driving has been influenced by the driving habits/techniques I witnessed as a kid. The things that I am about to list will never be everything because I feel like as humans we always find new ways to mess up or destroy something. I have gone on my phone while driving, fixed my hair, eaten whichever meal I needed to at that time, and so on and on. Sadly, each time I have tried to justify my actions as well by saying oh it’s just a red light or looking down for this one second won’t hurt. Those are always lies because when you take your eyes off that road you have no control over what may happen. This is a core aspect that needs to be addressed if we want to become safer drivers on the road.

We have so many driving school opportunities and resources for older students but nothing for the younger generation. As a kid I remember experts from the police, firefighters, and even the cyclist community come out to us and teach us safety tips. Those could range from having a fire safety plan, what to do if a stranger approaches you, and the importance of wearing the proper equipment when you are riding a bike. These are things that I vividly remember from my childhood and it’s clearly effective if I still apply these things to my life today. I would like a driving instructor to come in and teach elementary kids about the dangers of the road and what they can do to help prevent it and not make the same mistakes as everyone else. I know it’s also really cheesy to say this but they are our future and we need to protect them if we expect to keep the human race going.

Another thing that should be addressed is the safety aspects of a car and how people ignore them. The seatbelt is the most underutilized aspect of a car even though it’s as easy as turning on the car itself. The thing that I compare it to the most is like a wii remote strap or a nintendo strap for the joycons. These are very easy to put on and you do feel the weight around your wrist. This is there to minimize it from falling out of your hand and causing damage to the thing and that’s exactly what a seatbelt does. Sure you can feel it on your neck and across your chest but after a point you do get used to it. You wouldn’t want someone destroying your $80 joycons when that could’ve been avoided so just scale that logic when it comes to other human lives around you on the road. I think people can live with a minor annoyance if it means that their life will be safe.

I also want to touch on the future of cars and where it’s going. There are so many articles about self driving cars, flying cars, and just so many cars with every gizmo and gadget that we can think of. I don’t want people to focus/rely on the future because we are still here in the present so we should be focusing on our own driving ability. These types of cars would definitely not be available to everyone so why bank on that way to get out of driving. We should not get comfortable with incredible inventions of the future because that causes us to be lazy and potentially cause someone’s life.

One thing that is overlooked in drivers ed is your emotions while driving. I’m not talking about the classic road rage we always see depicted in movies but instead the anxiety and nervousness that we experience day to day. With me hitting a parked car and my mom hitting a bus the things that mainly fueled that mistake were anxiety. I just want drivers ed to focus on this issue more and teach people not to drive when they themselves are steering their lives based off of emotion at that time. Just like at any other time in our lives if we are making decisions based off of emotion then most of the time it will end up poorly.

Teaching kids about the real world statistics and having testimonials from survivors of any type of car crash can help. When you put things into perspective of real life and applications of it then it can really reach and motivate people to take this seriously. This can go to anything from pollution to covid deaths around the world. You would be surprised how many people have stories or experiences related to these things! Many kids think they are invincible but car crashes can happen to anyone even when you least expect it.