Life Changed in a Flash of Yellow

I can still remember the distinct feeling of the colossal yellow semi-truck crashing into my little white car. It was the moment my confidence stopped and my entire perspective on the world of driving changed. As a fairly new teenager behind the wheel, I was elated to be the one in charge of my own transportation. Although my excitement to drive was prevalent, I understood the crucial need to drive safely without distraction. I felt that my driver’s education class had prepared me well, and I was confident in my ability to navigate the road seamlessly. As I was driving cautiously down the road on the day of my accident, I didn’t think that anything bad could happen to a person who was following all of the traffic laws. Just as I was thinking about my confidence in driving, an enormous semi-truck ran a stop sign and nearly killed me. I slammed on my brakes as hard as humanly possible, but it was somehow still not enough. I did everything that I had been taught in driver’s ed to stay safe on the road, and I ended up with a totaled car, and a panic filled mind. That experience taught me the importance of being a safe driver. Although I followed all of the traffic laws in this instance, I still nearly lost my life because of someone else’s careless driving. Experiencing this made me lose all trust in other driver’s on the road for a time. In order to keep those on the road safe and comfortable in the driver’s seat, everyone on the road needs to be fully committed to being a safe and attentive driver. 

Although I have had an intimate experience to help me understand the importance of safe and defensive driving, many have not yet recognized the critical need for attentive driving. A startling statistic states that each year over 30,000 Americans lose their lives from accidents on the road. Although some accidents are caused by the weather and other factors, many are caused by reckless driving. If this reckless driving does not decrease, America’s death rates will continue to increase. One of the biggest ways to teach people about the safe way of driving is simply to enroll in driver’s education. Although passing this course is required for high school students to get their driver’s license, many students do not pay full attention to the lessons taught because they simply do not understand the importance of the course. The number of deaths on the roads could be greatly decreased in the future if high school students placed more emphasis on the importance of learning how to be a safe driver, and following the rules and advice they learned in their driver’s education. 

Although teenagers account for a lot of the accidents on the roads, there are a lot of improvements that can be made by every age of driver. Throughout my years of life, I have seen examples of friends whose parents do not put a big emphasis on the importance of safe driving, and this has resulted in these friends following the example of their parents and becoming reckless drivers themselves. If parents are consistently a prime example of safe driving, the likelihood of their child becoming a safe driver is greatly increased. I have been lucky enough to grow up with two parents who care deeply about road safety, and having them as a resource in my education of driving has helped me immensely. When my mother was a child, her family was involved in a fairly serious accident, so she understands the same types of feelings that I experience when thinking of driving. We have both experienced the heartache that comes with car accidents, and never want another person to have to go through that heartache because of our reckless driving. 

While no one in my immediate family has lost a life due to a car accident, many families have not been so lucky. Studies have shown that, “…more people …have died in one year as a result of driving, than the total number of American soldiers who have died from war in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.” In thinking about the individuals that have died in car accidents, my mind turns to the thousands of families that lose a loved one due to this petrifying issue. Is the “excitement” of driving recklessly really worth the risk of possibly being responsible for a person’s death? When a reckless driver causes another person’s death, the ripple of grief reaches hundreds of that person’s loved ones. On the flip side, each life that can be spared due to responsible driving increases the number of people that get to experience the fullness and beauty of life. In Utah, we have the slogan “Zero Fatalities: A Goal We Can All Live With.” This may sound overly optimistic, but I believe it is a goal worth pursuing.