Accidents: Always a Surprise

The crash always takes me by surprise.

I’ve only been in two: once, in my childhood, sitting in the backseat, the car reversed a bit too fast and suddenly stopped. At the time, it felt like nothing, a minor inconvenience. My mother, panicked, ran out of the car—it wasn’t until much later when I realized that we had totaled the van behind us, with a family inside.

The second happened when I was behind the wheel, in a busy parking lot. Music blared from my speakers as I attempted to maneuver into the street. In my distraction, I hardly noticed the car beside me until it was too late.

One wrong move, and everything suddenly collapses. One wrong move, and life as you knew it can change irreparably, leaving nothing but countless “what-ifs and painful regrets. They don’t teach you this in driving school—how a single mistake can cost a lifetime.

Yet, somehow, we all get used to the madness.

Driving has become ubiquitous in America, a rite of passage for every wide-eyed red-faced 16-year-old. Accidents are seen as the exception, not the norm: even with 31,785 deaths from traffic crashes in the past 9 months,¹ people fear spiders more than cars. Long car rides, distracted driving, and illegal parking are widely accepted behaviors—for some, driving without stimulation becomes the real struggle. We believe we are immune to danger, that taking a phone call at a red light is harmless, that jaywalking is only illegal when the cops are around, that everything will be alright.

The most dangerous aspect of driving is not the accident, nor the aftermath. It is the illusion of control.

After my run-in at the parking lot, I swore off music in the car—or at least, I tried to. A few short weeks later and I already felt dangerously relaxed, my boredom and my ego kicking in. Only about a month passed by before I returned to my old habits, blasting the speakers, cruising down the road, waiting for my next accident.

People focus on the tragedy. They gesture at the numbers, for good reason—in 2020 alone, around 55,000 pedestrians were injured nationwide.² Yet, perhaps what is more important are the near misses.

For every wreck on the road, there are countless others that barely avoided their fate. For every injured pedestrian and totaled car, there are the ones who scream in time, who turn the wheel just fast enough. They are lucky—yet these close calls only add to the dangerous driving culture that has been cultivated in the United States.

I have only been in two accidents, but I cannot count on two hands the number of near misses that have become almost a monthly occurrence. Whether it be a rough left turn or a forgotten biker, the mistakes are constant and the consequences minimal. My friends and I have become ever bolder, even as every mistake becomes a ticket in a national lottery in which over 40,000 die each year.³

Tragedy, though disastrous, is universally understood. What’s more insidious are the ways in which we lower our guard, when caution and vigilance is replaced with indifference and neglect.

Although driver’s education is mandatory in California, where I’m from, it is mostly regarded as a hassle, a hoop to jump through before being able to zip down the road. The rules and regulations, though serious, seem tedious. Many attempt to cheat the system: if you’re over 18, you can skip driver’s training and get your driver’s test immediately. If you’re from out-of-state, you can take the permit test at home in Arizona and transfer your license to California.

Rules become guidelines, which themselves soon become forgotten worries. Countless teens in my neighborhood drive others around within a few weeks of getting their license, even as a new state provision mandates they drive alone for the first year. On-the-wheel training with friends or parents often happens before the written test has even been scheduled.

To be effective, driver’s education must become a priority. Adequate funding must be funneled into the DMV and government-sponsored education sites to properly contextualize the inherent dangers that come with driving. People must understand driving is not a pastime, a sport, nor a game—it is first and foremost a calculated risk.

Individually, we can be more cognizant of the dangers of driving. Every near miss, every distracted second and minor mistake is an opportunity to learn, to be better. Caution, although challenging to maintain, is crucial—we must all remember that driving is dangerous.

It is difficult to erase the pervasive culture of risky driving in the United States, as difficult as rewiring the brain to ignore adrenaline rushes and peer pressure. However, the problem can only be solved by trying.