Driving Safely

Driving can be a very dangerous thing if a driver is not educated in the rules of the road. For example, if a driver is not informed of the fact that you stop on a red light or at a stop sign, they could seriously injure themselves and others. This is why educating a driver before allowing them to actually drive is so imperative. Teaching a new driver the rules of the road could save not only their lives but the lives of others. It is important that when teaching a new driver that you teach them the basics somewhere where if they make a mistake, they are still safe. A place where maybe not a lot of cars are so that they can get use to the feel of a car before they have to deal with the stress of having other cars around them.

When teaching a new driver, you don’t just teach them the basics like what certain signs mean and when to stop but you also teach them what kind of consequences there could be for certain choices they make. For example, most drivers know that if they speed, they get a ticket from the police that they have to pay off or they could lose their license. Teaching new drivers about consequences like this will help them be less inclined to break those rules that are there for their protection and the protection of others.

One of the major problems that make driving so dangerous is cell phones. Cell phones are a constant distraction in our world. When someone is driving, and they hear their phone go off it is now second nature to grab that phone and look at the message that was sent to them. That momentary cause of distraction can have terrific consequences to it. You could be looking at your phone for one second and miss the fact that there is a pedestrian trying to cross the street or the car that is trying to switch lanes. A way we can help fix this problem is by turning off the sound on our cell phones when we are in our cars so that when we do get a call or text message, we don’t hear the beep and are tempted to look down at our phones to see what we are missing. We can wait ten minutes to look at a text if it means making our roads safer.

When I was eight I was in a car accident. My mom and I were on our way to dinner after a long day of school. We had just stopped at a stop light when the car hit our car from behind, shattering the back window and showering me in glass. It was a terrifying experience. The man that hit us had been on his phone and did not realize that the light had turned red and did not slowdown in time to stop. Luckily the worst injury that was sustained couple scrapes and bruises. While I was lucky to have a scrape on the cheek be my worse injury some people are not always as lucky as I was in these kinds of situations. Some people lose their family and friends all because of a text or call that was deemed too important to wait.

Another danger on the road is drunk drivers. Over 35,000 deaths a year are caused by drunk drivers. It is extremely important that if you are going to have to drive somewhere and you get drunk or are planning on getting drunk that you let someone else drive you home. Plan ahead of time to have someone there that can take you home so you don’t risk the lives of everyone else on the road.

Driving is a very dangerous thing. There are so many things that make it dangerous. It is time that we start doing something to make it safer. The main thing we can do is to teach drivers how to be defensive drivers. What that means is to teach them to be on the look out for cars that have the potential of being dangerous. Teaching them how to do this will not only help them avoid the drivers that are being reckless but can also help them have an escape plan if something bad does happen. For example, if a driver sees a car ahead that is swerving around the road they can look around at their surroundings and have plan of where to go if that car ends up swerving into their lane. They will be able to keep themselves and other safe. We all need to play a part in making our roads safer even if that part is simple watching out for others.