We Need to Do Better

“Safety brings first aid to the uninjured.” – F.S. Hughes

Driving is apart of daily life and will be for a long time coming, but what about all the dangers that come with driving? Is it something that will always be a high-risk danger? We should all be able to exponentially reduce the risk of danger when driving a car by increasing our awareness and safety precautions.

Reducing the number of drivers can be easily done through proper driving education. Through instruction, practice, and a lesson learned, a larger majority of drivers would learn why it is extremely important to be safer while driving. Driver education places a big part in reducing deaths because it teaches student driver’s how to actively use what they learned through their permit test. They also, however, learn how to quickly make decisions in possibly dangerous driving situations and how to avoid an accident. I think that the biggest mistake someone could make while driving, is getting comfortable. Getting comfortable makes the driver feel as if nothing bad will happen, their guard is down, making them more susceptible to mistakes. Mistakes that wouldn’t have happened if they had just paid a little bit more attention.

One of the biggest steps to take to reduce the number of deaths related to driving is to better the driving education and put a higher enforcement on completion and accuracy. With a stronger program of driver education and higher enforcement student drivers would find a higher importance in being safe and responsible while on the road. One of the biggest issues found with drivers and accidents caused by driving is not checking blind spots and speeding. Young adults aged 15-44 account for more than half of all road traffic deaths. These are easy preventable mistakes that end up causing the worst day of someone’s life. Taking this into account, we should take more precautionary measures to teach young adults the importance of safe driving.

I have never personally been in a car accident, but my mother is probably the most irresponsible driver I know. She drives like she’s playing Mario Kart bobbing and weaving between lanes with only a glance over her shoulder. That in addition to extreme speeding is a wreck waiting to happen, and with the severity of her speeding it would never be a minor wreck either. Sometimes I have to take a deep inhale as if to brace myself because I don’t know what’s going to happen, like I on a bad rollercoaster. She’s not the only one with dangerous driving though, almost everyone I know who drives except for one to two people drive dangerously and cut corners on driving safety. Either they’ll speed or run a newly turned red light because “they thought they could make it.” There was a time where I was in the car with a friend as the driver. She was dropping me off at a restaurant and we took the highway to get to our destination. We were talking and laughing, but I start to notice that she isn’t really paying attention to her speed or the fact that we were about to take a sharp curve. As she tried to turn, the mistake was realized as we started skidding and she had to immediately press on the brakes. On the outside I acted like it was ok, but in reality I was scared. I didn’t even know her that well, the car could have flipped, or slammed into the side ramps. In my head all the possible outcomes flooded my head. What If we did flip over? Did I tell my parents that I loved them that morning, did I talk to my sister? The split-second mistake made while driving could make the biggest difference in in the world and can make or break somebody’s life.

Steps that I can personally take to be a better and safer driver would be to use my driving education to the full extent and to use my learner’s permit as a way to fully learn how to be a safe and responsible driver. A way to help others stay safer on the roads would be to hold the people around me accountable. For example, if I am a passenger in a friend or family’s car if the are speeding or violating road rules, I would question them and hold them accountable. Especially if they’re carrying passengers in their vehicles, that should be even more of an incentive to stay safe on the roads. It is important for people to realize that driving a motorized vehicle is not Mario Kart actions have consequences, and when you make that mistake it could quite literally ends somebody’s life.