The Reality of Driving

One Sunday in January my life flashed between my eyes, the moment that the world went dark. It was snowing heavily, Temperatures below freezing. My brother and I were coming back from my dad’s, a drive that we took a thousand times before. We were about 10 minutes away from my mom’s, going up a hill on freeway 70. Honestly, I was not paying attention, scrolling through social media on my phone. The next thing I remember is my brother grabbing my seatbelt and telling me to put my feet firmly on the ground. I had a terrible habit of propping my feet up on his dash, laying down in his car while he drove. I recall arguing with him, not even looking up from my phone when he physically grabbed my legs and placed them there. I looked up to retaliate only to see the horrific sight of what was in front of me. Trucks were flipped over and sideways, cars unable to break to stop from hitting them. Then my mind stopped, my heart rate increased, unable to grasp air for my lungs; like a computer overheating. We were getting flung from side to side, like we were the ball inside a pinball machine. I closed my eyes praying that it was a dream, only to get started by a bang on my side door. The door dented in hitting my ribs, knocking whatever air was left out. It felt like my eyes were closed for hours, before I heard my brother’s voice asking if I was okay, shaking my shoulders. I slowly opened my eyes, afraid of what I would see. The first image that focused on my vision was the back of a semi-truck, inches away from the hood of the car. I looked around frantically, but only to see semi-trucks and cars all around us. I analyzed the damage done, realizing that the back driver’s door had disappeared, my door was dented to the middle of my seat, and my brother’s window completely shattered. It was a Miracle that the front end of the car did not get directly hit, not activating the air bags. We both sat there in silence, catching our breath and processing how lucky we were not to be seriously injured.

I can confidently say that the weather was the cause of this accident, but that is not always the case. Bad decisions by drivers, distracted drivers, drunk drivers, or even accidents can make someone live through this or much worse. This country and most of the world relies on cars for traveling and getting rid of them is unrealistic. Therefore, accidents are going to happen, but decreasing the ones that we can control is crucial to save lives.

According to the experts at CDC, 29 people every single day die in a motor vehicle crash that involves an alcoholic-impaired driver. Every 50 minutes someone is dying because of someone else’s choices. The easy thing to say is do not get behind the wheel if you have alcohol in your system, but we have already tried that, and it is not working. I wish it did not go deeper than the driver, but it does in this case. Bars should not allow anybody to drive who buys a drink for themselves. A workable solution to this is trade keys for a drink, keeping it in a locked safe or a secured drawer. Driving companies like Lyft and Uber increase drivers in areas of bars to still give people options to get home. Driving companies are very expensive, finding a way to lower prices will also solve this problem. People do not want to pay $60 for a ride home, especially if they have access to a car. Instead of driving companies competing, raising prices, we need to work together to lower them. Lowering prices does mean that tips are also lower, but what if they did not? What if instead of tips being measured by the price they are measured by the miles. This ensures that Uber drivers will still make similar money to what they were making before. Doing it this way means that Uber is making less money. If we can realize as a society, that economy is not the most important thing, and we can realize that life is, we can make changes. In a safe way there are things that we can change that do not affect us as much. Making the permit and driving test more extreme is an uncomplicated way to make the roads safer. Previous research from iihs has established that even though teenagers drive proportionally less than older people, the fatal crash per mile driven is 3 times the rate of 16 – 19-year old’s than people older than 20. Going to the extreme to make sure drivers are fully comfortable behind the wheel and have a deep understanding of driving can lower deaths and accident rates tremendously.

Everyone can improve their driving in some way. Either that be making sure their music is set before they put the car in reverse of drive, driving the speed limit, not running red lights, flicking on the blinker whenever intended, etc. For me personally, I struggle with rendering when I should go on a yellow light or stop, meaning sometimes I am running a red light. It does take experience but researching the time length that a yellow light stays yellow helped me too. I researched and understood now that a yellow light will stay yellow for 3 – 6 seconds at a time. Next time I can make an accurate decision on if I should go or break.

Driving is one of the most dangerous yet beneficial things this world has created. As a society, we need to understand the consequences of it and be actively aware of how we can change it for the better. This does not take one person; it takes a whole village to stand behind the same idea for this to really change.

Work Cited

“Fatality Facts 2020: Teenagers.” IIHS-HLDI Crash Testing and Highway Safety, www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers.

Impaired Driving: Get the Facts | Transportation Safety | Injury Center | CDC. www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html.