The Steps to Take to Save Your Life

Driving. It’s something over a billion people do on a regular basis; to go to work, back home or maybe just to get an ice cream. No matter what, people are constantly commuting on the roads. However, just as there are as many drivers, there are also as many fatalities due to driving. Thousands of people die annually in the US due to car crashes with a lot coming from my home state of Texas. However, these numbers should be way lower if we were to all learn to be educated on the road. We can prevent car fatalities by not only educating people and taking the necessary steps in ensuring the safety of ourselves and those drivers around us.

Being educated is the most important factor to driver safety and ensuring those who are on the road are out of harm’s way. In 2012, over 33,000 people died due to motor vehicles accidents, an increase from the previous year. Since then up until 2020, the numbers have increased to the upper 30,000s and have lingered there for the most part. However, in 2021 a staggering 42,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents, a sharp increase from the previous year of 38,000. This number surpasses the deaths in the American Revolution, Iraq war, the War of 1812, War in Afghanistan, and the Mexican American War combined. Only 5,000 fatalities away from equally the number of deaths in the Vietnam War. The majority of crashes, 95% according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), are preventable and are mainly due to human error. The majoring factor leading to this human error is the fact that most drivers are not properly educated. Being educated however, exponentially decreases the odds of an accident occurring. Most people don’t know basic rules of driving, forget about them, or just flat out ignore them. From yielding, to using signals, to the most basic of wearing a seat belt; all these are factors could result and have resulted in fatal car accidents. Educating people about what signs such as “Yield” signify could prevent less head-on collision as people would actually understand what the sign means. Reminding people when they are first learning about turn signals consistently will allow for them not to forget about it for a while, until it becomes a natural habit to do it. Lastly, but most importantly, is not only educating people on why they should wear seatbelts, but also showing them the tragic effects of what occurs if one gets into an accident without wearing one. Education is key and the most important factor to reducing motor vehicle deaths across not the US, but the world.

As mentioned before, educating people right and them passing it on is a way to ensure there are less deaths related to driving. One of the steps taken is making sure that everyone who is in the vehicle with you has fasted their seatbelt, including yourself. This is the number one rule that will ensure less deaths as seat belts are literal live savers. According to the NHTSA, when a person wears a seatbelt the likelihood of a death is literally cut in half. This would greatly reduce deaths especially those that could have been easily preventable by a seatbelt. Another step that could be taken is that of making sure that every time someone is intoxicated, they have someone else be behind the wheel. Driving while intoxicated causes not only deaths to others, but usually ends up with the driver dead as well. A pivotal step in ensuring this is making bouncers outside bars be able to check blood-alcohol concentration before allowing people to drive home in their vehicles. If they are not in the capacity to drive, they must have someone pick them up or call an uber. This would prevent a multitude of deaths resulting from intoxicated drivers and allow roads to be safer. These steps would not only ensure drivers are to be safer while on the roads, but also prevent deaths that would occur from crashes.

Had drivers been educated, the crashes my family and I have been involved with could have been avoided. My family and I were in Mexico driving back to Houston; a 12-hour road trip being undertaken by my father. It was past midnight, and we were close to the border by Laredo. Apart from being a dangerous trip to take due to cartels, it’s also in general unsafe to drive at night in Mexico due to drunk drivers. We were at a light and we had gotten a green; I remember vividly playing on my iPad when suddenly, I felt a BOOM! and felt the car shake uncontrollably. Glass shattered all over and fell upon me and my little brother; the car spun viciously in the middle of the road. I had a few cuts on my arms and was bleeding. I cried hoping my parents were okay. Turns out a person driving an 18-wheeler was drunk and ran a redlight hitting us in the back. A few more inches and me and my brother probably wouldn’t be alive today. The drunk driver kept driving leaving us in the middle of the intersection. Glass shattered, luggage everywhere, me and my brother in tears. Had this driver not been drunk, he would have been in the right-headspace to stop for the redlight and not hit our car straight on. We were held at immigration for over 12 hours due to the conditions of our car and were scared that we weren’t going to be allowed back home. On top of the fear of the crash, we had to deal with the backlash of having to pay the car off with money that we don’t have. We aren’t well off, and we barely get by as it is so the years that followed were hard as we had to pay the car off. Had the driver been educated and known that driving while drunk, especially in an 18-wheeler, could have the ramifications that it does, he may have never done it in the first place.

So, remember when on the road, these simple steps to ensure being a better and safer driver as well as help others become safer on the road. Step one is ensuring everyone is wearing a seatbelt. As stated earlier this is the most important step as it ensures that even if an accident occurs, the chance of a fatality decreases exponentially. Step two is being extremely aware of your surroundings. Ensuring that you are always scanning and being aware of the cars around you is the best way to ensure you don’t hit a car. Rule three is following the signs. Knowing what signs such as “Yield” and following speed signs are integral into making sure that accidents don’t occur. However, while not a rule, the most important factor in preventing accidents is being educated. Those who are educated well will be safe drivers will teach those in the future how to be safe, educated drivers as well.

In conclusion, being educated and reducing car related fatalities go together with one another. If we were to be a more drive-educated country, the number of fatalities would drastically decrease. We must educate future drivers as well as current drivers to ensure safety across the nation. We can’t have parents going to the grocery store and never coming back to their kids at home due to a motor accident.