Driver Safety: Protecting More Than Yourself

No one ever wakes up and decides to walk twenty miles and back to the nearest grocery store, it would just be irrational and honestly extremely difficult which is why they made the amazing invention of cars to take you from here and there. Yet with the amazing invention of cars comes the danger of those who are uneducated and ignorant. Thousands of people die from fatal car crashes each year but this is exactly why preventions were put in place to keep yourself safe and also to keep pedestrians and bike riders safe too because while cars are an amazing and very useful invention they are also extremely lethal if they are put in the hands of someone untrained and uneducated.

When getting a job say a s police officer or even a burger flipper you have to be trained to use the equipment in that establishment, you can not immediately start frying fries if you have no previous training you could burn yourself or your coworkers with oil or as a police officer if you have never fired a gun before you have a exceptionally high chance of shooting yourself or your partner. So why would you be allowed to use a car with no training? Learning how to drive can be a difficult step. It can be hard to understand how to turn or how to brake softly without jerking the car, when to accelerate and brake and such. Learning how to drive takes time and soon can become second nature and the more you drive the more you know exactly how to drive safely to keep others safe. If you and everyone else on the road knows how to drive in all conditions whether its snow or rain you can avoid collisions and sometimes pedestrians rush across the street but if you’re an expert at driving you can see this and slow down quickly and safely making sure no one at all get hurts, minus the hurt ego of the pedestrian for not crossing the street correctly. When you’re educated you understand exactly how much room your car has around you as if you have a birds eye view over your own car and with more and more advancements you’ll be able to keep your car in your own bubble so you won’t have to worry about collisions, scrapes or being run off the road.

Some steps to be a better driver and to keep you, yourself and strangers safe is to firstly know the rules of the road, be comfortable with driving and in control of your own vehicle. The moment you lose control of your vehicle is the moment it’s no longer your vehicle like walking in the hallway. You stay on the right side, you walk as slow or as fast as the traffic moves and you are careful not to hit anyone even if it’s absolutely packed full. Another step is to not be afraid to use your brake and drive a bit slower, of course you can not go 20 in a 50 but if you are in a new area and you don’t quite know how the streets are then you should go exactly the speed limit maybe 5 mph under just to be aware of everything while not worrying about getting into any accidents. You may get home five minutes later but it’s better than not being able to go home at all because of an accident. The other step is to use your brake, people slow down you slow down, your turn is coming up brake and use your turning signals. In my opinion you should be using your brake more than using your gas.

Personally I have never been in a crash but my friend has. She was driving forwards when the light turned green when a car collided right into the side of her even though his light was red. She ended up not being able to drive for weeks with no car and an intense back injury. If that man paid attention, slowed down and braked before going she would have been ok. He was in a rush yet because of that crash he was in fact delayed much more than if he just waited until his light turned green.

With all these tips it’s easy to think it’s easy to just hop in and drive but you have to be worried more about yourself. You must be vigilant because even though your educated others might be aware, be safe and encourage others to learn the rules of the road.