Cars, Crashes, and What Can Be Done

Something that I feel no one truly acknowledges is the dominance of “car culture” here in America. I suppose it makes sense. After all, our public transportation system is, at least in my hometown of Woodbridge, centered around the bus, and the rest of public transport has left much to be desired in the hearts of many Americans. A personal vehicle serves as a means of voiding that small issue and make a commute to a job or school or retail center far easier and more convenient. Not just this; there is also what one’s own car represents. For a teenager or young adult like myself, a car means freedom. No longer do I have to press my parents or whoever for a ride, for I can drive myself anywhere I want (just so long as I can pay for gas). To others, a personal vehicle represents status and one’s place in the world. Recall for a moment one of the most famous (or infamous) quotes from online celebrity and entrepreneur grifter Andrew Tate, “What color is your Bugatti?” A rhetorical question aimed at the fact his opponent did not have the financial capability to own a luxury sportscar.

Perhaps it is safe to say that America is a country that runs on personal automobiles.

However, one of the unfortunate side effects of America’s car dependance the reality of roadway accidents. With so many folks on the road, the risk is ever present. Cars are not infallible; all it takes is a brake failure or a dead battery or a cracked engine for something to go horribly wrong and add to the harrowing statistic of lives lost in car accidents; millions die per year.

Though mechanical flaws are rarely to blame.

I’m not entirely sure of the numbers myself, but I am fairly certain that more than half of all accidents are caused by human error. Speeding, distracted driving, DUI, road rage; there are so many things that cause untold billions in damages every single year that are caused by humans alone.

One would expect the best means to prevent such accidents from occurring would be a good driver’s education. It is included in most public curriculum for a reason. We cannot have a bunch of hooligans out and about that don’t know the difference between a merge point and a road divider. But, if an education is such an amazing, life-saving thing, why are there still so many human-caused accidents?

I believe that they’re not educating us the right way.

I am a high school senior; when I was a sophomore taking a drivers ed class two and a half years ago, it was still the height of quarantine. Perhaps things have changed since when I was logging into my classes from my kitchen table. In any case, my experience with driver’s ed was… it was a bit of a sleeper class. I’ll acknowledge that I’m a fairly solid test taker, memorizing information in the short term comes very easily to me, so I never had to study too much. Maybe that’s why the taught to me in class never stuck in my head, but I get the sense that I am not the only one. The current way (to my knowledge) that driver’s ed is conducted is as follows: walk into class and be lectured to about the dangers of the road and whatever chapter of the textbook that was the subject of the day. Then, after multiple months of this, students are finally given some time behind the wheel… for about a week. Then take a computer test to get the permit, drive with a parent for 45 hours and pass a driving test for the license.

I will be completely honest, this method sucks. Learning by being read to with a textbook from 2009 is simply a horrible way to learn one of the most important skills for an American citizen. No amount of studying the books could ever prepare for the real deal of road and range; it’s a totally new skillset. When one is learning to drive, there is a fairly steep learning curve of learning the car itself: where everything is, the responsiveness of the accelerator and brakes, vehicular awareness, et cetera. I don’t think much of it now, but there is so many mental processes I go through on my daily commute to school that have just become second nature. I can accurately project braking distances and how long it will take me to stop in any circumstance, where other cars on the road are, where I am on the road.

Do you think I got this because of my education?

No, each and every skill I have was built up on the time of my mother and father spent drilling the fundamentals of driving itself. Most road etiquette I learned in the 45 hours driving with adults, as well as how to deal with just about every situation I might come across. I am confident in my driving now because I have practice with it.

I was terrified of the road. I’ve never been in an accident myself, but my father has ended up in at least three over the course of his lifetime. My mother has gone off the road and into floodwater. My sister was hurt pretty bad in the two car accidents that she was involved in, one of which was her fault. I know for a fact that I never want to end up in a car accident, the thought the money it would cost or if I hurt or worse, kill anybody is too much to bear. Sometimes, even now those thoughts cross my mind.

I’m not really the best driver. Sometimes I’m pretty stupid.

For instance, something that happened fairly recently was I was helping out with a mulch transport operation for some volunteer hours. My job was to haul heavy bags of the stuff onto trucks and into U-Haul trailers. It was a cold and dreary morning, and the sun didn’t break through the clouds until it was time to leave. I was out there for about four hours and I never really stopped working.

All of this is to say that I was exhausted.

So when I climbed into my car to begin my drive home, I wasn’t just endangering myself, I was endangering everyone near me on the road. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes on the road or detecting the other vehicles around me. I was impaired, and I think I realized I shouldn’t have been driving when I was about halfway home and almost flew into an intersection.

Didn’t crash into anybody but gave myself enough of a scare to keep me alert until I was home.

Suffice to say, I learned my lesson. I developed a little phrase to keep myself safe on the road: no DAPS, also known as no drugs, alcohol, phones, or sleepiness. I’m underaged and straightedged so those first two are no problem for me, but if anyone needs to hear it, don’t drive under the influence, the likelihood of getting somebody else or yourself killed is far too high. Same goes for sleepiness; it’s almost as bad as drunk driving, as illustrated in my little story. Phones is the last one, and one I very much struggle with, but we cannot allow ourselves to take our eyes off the road.
There are a few other things I do, such as breathing exercises to manage road rage and panic (lord knows they strike without warning), checking and rechecking my mirror visibility, keep long periods of driving under three hours as I tend to get fatigued after that point, and limit myself to below ten over the speed limit (unless it is a 70 zone, then it becomes five over or less). That’s just a few of my strategies that I’ve learned with experience.

Once again back to experience.

I am confident that a proper driver’s education can serve to reduce at the very least fatalities on the road, however our youth is not being educated. At least, not the way we should be educated about these matters. We are taught the theoretical in school when we need to be taught the practical. Given experience so we can understand what our instructors are trying to teach us. This, I believe, is imperative to reducing death on the road. Not all stupidity that incurs in the world can be solved with education, but at this point, involvement of the student can only do good.

That is my one and only change.