The Steps to Safety

Sitting in a passenger seat with a seatbelt strung across your chest as you feel the vehicle catch air around you is a memory that is forever engraved in your brain. The adrenaline surging through your veins with your life on the line can do that to you. It either allows you to obtain every terrifying detail or forget the life lesson you were situationally experiencing. As the driver, with your buckle tightly fastened and your knuckles turning white as they grip the steering wheel, you are at fault along with the lives of others in your hands . Your choices and decisions made while operating a motorized vehicle not only affects your passengers, but those around you are at risk as well. In either case, this situation is something that can take someone’s life and shouldn’t be taken lightly. There are several steps that can be made to be a better and safer driver along with protecting those around us which include, driving techniques, mindsets, and education courses that touch on all of these points.

The first step to becoming a better and safer driver is having a defensive driving technique. This approach to driving means that you are hyper aware of your surroundings and make decisions based on others reactions. An example of this driving technique would be to wait at a four way intersection and not proceed to drive until the vehicles around you make motions to stop. When this method is done, it allows for you to have control over your safety instead of having the safety of your vehicle be controlled by other driver’s decisions. The defensive driving technique is a much better option opposed to an offensive approach which involves assumptions of other driver’s choices and decisions. The offensive driving method also allows a lot of room for error and misjudgement which is where most injuries occur.

The second step to becoming a better and safer driver is having the right mindset every time you get behind the wheel. A proper mindset when driving is to be defensive toward other drivers, remaining calm in stressful situations, and having awareness. This can be difficult depending on everybody’s circumstances but emotions and mindsets can alter the decision making process at a chemical level in the brain. It is scientifically proven that making decisions while angry can cause impatient outcomes and irrational responses and reactions. That being said, when driving, it is important to be able to make good decisions in order to avoid putting yourself and or others in dangerous situations. To make yourself a better driver, allow yourself to recollect your emotions and settle down before driving when feeling angry. This time to calm down not only allows you to make better decisions on the road but also can decrease road rage toward other drivers. This allows you to keep those around you and yourself safe while making you a better driver.

The third step to ensuring safety while driving is eliminating distractions. This step is very important considering there is on average over 30,000 deaths per year due to distractions while driving. To become a safe and better driver, put your phone down, food away, and keep music to a reasonable volume to ensure that you are focused on the road and not distracted. Doing these things will allow you to concentrate on driving and to be aware of your surroundings. Also by putting this step into our routines as drivers, it can lower the average of lives lost due to motorized vehicle accidents and decrease risks for more drivers.

The last step you can take to become a better and more educated driver is a Driver Education course. These courses provide supervised practice, up to date teaching curriculums, and hold you accountable to be a safe driver. During this course, you are given countless opportunities to experience realistic situations and learn how to properly react and respond to each situation accordingly. The chance for a driver to experience these situations before driving on their own influences a positive response later on down the road. A Driver Education course also allows you to work with an experienced driver who teaches proper driving techniques. These courses are designed to help you obtain the highest level of safety while driving. A common saying is practice makes perfect and that is exactly what this driving course allows you to do. Practicing in a controlled environment ensures safety from new drivers by allowing them to learn before hitting the road. The guidance from a trained professional also ensures new drivers are given accurate and up to date information on laws and regulations including speed limits and curfews. Driver Education is not only teaching about safety on the road, but also teaching how to handle a popped tire, weather, and other standard car maintenance as well. All of these points that Driver Education touches on allow for drivers to become better and safer before they even get on the road.

Being mindful of the decisions and choices we make as drivers can impact our lives and others’ lives immensely thus making it important to continuously improve. By portraying these steps of being a defensive driver, being aware of emotions while driving, eliminating distractions, and taking a Driver Education course, we can work on improving our driving skills and safety while driving. To see an improvement in those affected by driving accidents, we as drivers must enlist the change in our lives.