Saving Lives From Behind the Wheel

A deer blended into the darkness and jumped in front of my car. I was lucky to escape the head-on collision. As I abruptly stopped, my car’s headlights illuminated the deer’s pupils; at that moment, the car in the lane next to me slammed into the deer and swayed across the road, hitting the electric post. I stopped the car in shock; I looked toward the accident. I was unable to move, thinking it could’ve been me. I’ve been behind the wheel for seven months and have not been in a car accident, but I have seen people I know drive recklessly, whether that be them looking down towards the Carplay screen for a second or answering a text. All drivers need to know the responsibility they have whenever they sit behind the wheel.

It is no secret that driving, at times, is unsafe. A lack of competent drivers and knowledge of the road is one of the leading causes of accidents on the road. A study that analyzed road traffic accidents found that educational level and age are significantly correlated to mortality rates. Thus, those with less knowledge of driver education potentially have a higher chance of causing or being involved in an accident. As citizens who drive daily, we have to make roads safer. Once they have their license, drivers must take additional quizzes every three months. The questions that are marked as wrong will show up on the next quiz that the person takes. Further understanding the laws of the road will be just one step that fellow drivers and I can take to make the streets safer.

The lack of sufficient street and highway lighting in many cities throughout the U.S. adds to the already high chance of getting into a car accident—should the driver not have complete knowledge of the road, too. Last summer, I developed a proposal to the Mayor of Newark, a town very close to me, hoping to improve the safety of unlit roads.

Specifically, I focused on implementing more lighting on Interstate 280 (I-280) to help drivers and drivers with astigmatism, which causes blurred vision. Interstate 280 is a 17.85-mile Interstate Highway in New Jersey, which provides a spur between I-80 and I-95. At night, driving on I-280, which splits into five lanes, becomes dangerous due to insufficient lighting on the sides of the highway. For those with astigmatism, I-280 becomes even more unsafe. If these individuals also do not have sufficient knowledge of the road the chances of an accident increase exponentially. The benefit of improving lighting on I-280 far outweighs the cost. 224 deadly accidents and deaths happened on I-280 in 2021 when natural lighting was minimal. It is my responsibility to mitigate this as much as possible. In my proposal, I recommended the installation of smaller lights on the road.

When we drive at night, our pupils dilate to let more light inside the eye, which allows us to see more detail in low-light conditions. However, this becomes redundant due to the actual lack of lighting. It takes time for our eyes to fully adapt to darkness, but the time it takes for an accident to happen or for one to be avoided is in milliseconds. Thus, with the addition of the smaller lights on I-280, embedded in the yellow lane lines, drivers’ pupils would adapt to darkness on the highway more quicker. These lights would be from the material used in high mast lights scattered throughout highways and most roads.

Regardless if I am the one behind the wheel or if it is someone I know, I make it my mission to ensure the safety of everyone in the vehicle. If I am not driving, I may see the driver look at the screen to change the song or reply to a text with Siri rather than having full attention on the road. Instantly, I tell them to stop and do what they were for them. It is important that drivers set an example for others in the vehicle. While this may seem trivial, this decreases the chance of a potential accident. Overall, the implementation of small knowledge quizzes periodically and the installation of further lights could mitigate damage and fatalities, bringing us closer to a potential goal of striving for less than 1,000 traffic fatalities by the year 2060. In 2020, of the 5.25 million car accidents that took place, 1,575,000 accidents happened after dark. While it is impossible to know the exact amount that did not have good enough knowledge of the road or those who were driving without sufficient lighting, implementing these two ideas would undoubtedly make many feel safer.