Driving Educated

Education in reducing the number of deaths as a result of driving is very important. Injury and death from vehicles are one of the most reported accidents. Educating people when it comes to driving is one of the most impactful things you can do to prevent crashes. Driver tests are there to educate how to drive a car correctly and to obey traffic laws. This is the first test in education around vehicles. The next step is to show the dangers of distracted, reckless, and drunk driving. All three are factors when it comes to vehicle deaths. Educating new and old drivers about the risks when it comes to these is crucial. Distracted driving is when a driver looks away from the road in numerous ways. Talking to a passenger, using a phone, eating, or drinking. I have my phone set up so that while I am driving, it turns on do not disturb mode and blocks all notifications and apps until I stop driving. The phone detects the speed at which it is traveling. Using something like this with specific apps would be very beneficial. As an example, if your messaging app has access to your location, when it detects that you are moving too fast, it shuts down access to the user entering and using the app. This feature should be harder to turn on and off, or be a required thing that apps have in their software. Reckless driving is when a driver has no care of the laws they are breaking and are putting people around them in danger. Drunk driving is driving under the influence. Ads and campaigns about not driving drunk are everywhere. This is one thing that is advertised a lot, but not many people listen to these suggestions. These factors should be taught about. Explaining the risks that come from each must be shown heavily to help prevent the injuries and deaths that might be caused. I have seen my friends drive irresponsibly. A few boys I knew in high school would push past the speed limit on public roads and try to race each other. I showed my distaste for what they were doing and even expressed my concern for them. One of my friends was very close to them and I very adamantly told them that I don’t want them to encourage their behavior when it came to driving. When I was learning how to drive, my father allowed me to drive home Christmas eve from my uncle’s house. It was getting dark out and as I pulled up to a moderately busy road, I didn’t see the car coming around the bend. I judged that it was safe for me to accelerate onto the road and turn to the left. The car, coming from that direction, was quick enough to slam on their breaks and prevent a crash. That moment scared me greatly and after that I was nervous to get behind the wheel. My father told me it was okay. No one got hurt and if I had learned something from the experience to become a safer driver, he was going to help me overcome it. This was one of the things that led to me being very cautious on the road. I’m always very aware of my surroundings and keep my phone out of reach when I drive. I even configured a setting on it that turns off all incoming notifications when it detects that I’m moving faster than what a person can do. I drive at or just under the speed limit and always check both ways multiple times before I turn, merge, or cross a road. I keep music loud enough where I can hear it, not loud enough where it drowns out the sounds of my car and the cars around me. I also actively tell my parents to stop grabbing things from the glove boxes or other surrounding areas when they drive. My parents and I have this rule that if the person driving gets a text, the passenger reads it. If it’s important enough to be responded to now, the driver is read the text and says their reply out loud as the passenger types it out for them. Otherwise, they put the phone back and the driver will respond or look at the notification when we are parked. Car’s also have this feature where you can press a button on the steering wheel and have Google or Siri read and reply to your messages for you. I don’t use this personally, as it takes away some of my attention from the road, but this feature can help people to stop reaching down and looking for their phone to reply to a text themselves.