Stepping Up for Safety

“I’m glad to see how young people are stepping up when it comes to safety. They are focused on safety rather than being told to be safe. It makes a difference when people own things.”  I believe this quote is absolutely true when it comes to driving safety. I have seen my fellow Gen Z students remind their parents to put their phones down while driving. They educate older generations on updated rules of the road – like the correct hand position on the steering wheel now that all cars have air bags. We will also be the ones passing this knowledge down to our younger siblings and eventually our own children. Just like with internet safety, we have seen what happens when it’s done incorrectly, and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen to us or our friends.

None of this happens without education. The more students that are taught driving safety through their education classes, the more drivers on the road will make informed choices. In South Carolina where I live, there were 962 car deaths in the year 2020, which was more than a quarter of accidental deaths. Taking driver education classes can reduce driving deaths by over 4%. Another method of reducing deaths related to driving is improving roads and intersections. The Federal Highway Administration says that 10,180 people died in crashes near intersections in 2019. That’s almost one fourth of driving deaths, and that should cause us to pay extra attention to those areas.

They have programs in place to address this, but drivers can also help improve intersection safety. By stopping earlier, drivers make sure that they won’t accidentally run the red light and possibly put people coming the other direction in danger. Pausing before entering the intersection when the light turns green is also important. In case someone coming from the right or left is about to run their red light, it gives time for them to pass safely. It’s also important to resist the urge to check your phone while waiting at a red light. That way, if anything unexpected happens, you will already be watching and prepared to respond quickly.

Thankfully, I have not been in any major car accidents in my life. However, I see the aftermath of them almost weekly in my town. We have had two major car accidents involving flipped cars right in front of my high school this month, and I know students personally who have been injured or permanently disabled from car and motorcycle crashes. My family lives in a town that attracts many out of town and out of state tourists. This means that nearly half of the people driving on our roads don’t know their way around, and may or may not be paying full attention to the road. Different parts of the country also have different habits and customer for their driving. In some cities, the drivers are more aggressive. In some, they are used to driving faster or slower, using turn signals earlier or later, or using their hand to wave people on or to say thank you. When you combine all of these different driving customs in one place, it can lead to confusion. I believe this is part of why we have such a high rate of car accidents in my town. Consistent driver’s education content and consistent license requirements across all 50 states would be helpful in reducing these accidents. This would make my home town and many others much safer.

In summary, there are many steps that drivers can take every day to improve driving safety while we are waiting on laws and city engineering to improve. We must ignore all distractions, including cell phones, and also the increasingly complicated buttons and touch screens that cars now come with. It is also important to follow signs and the rules of road as closely as possible, while realizing that other drivers may not. One of my favorite rules for driving is: don’t do anything that would surprise other drivers. I try to keep that in mind every time I am behind the wheel. This means using a turn signal with plenty of time to warn people around me, not changing lanes unexpectedly, and avoiding sudden breaking. At the same time, we need to expect the unexpected from other drivers. If we all drive assuming that someone else isn’t going to follow the rules, then we will be prepared for the handful of times that it happens. When we are on the road, we are in community. It takes all of us stepping up together to make driving happen smoothly and safely.