Safe Driving: A Personal Journey Towards Responsibility and Compassion on the Road

Driver’s education is what keeps us alive while on the road. There are many horrifying accidents that happen as a result of distracted driving, or someone not understanding the rules of the road. Some people think it’s okay to rush, because they have been driving for many years, however, that day that they decide to rush, is when they crash into another family’s car, killing the entire family inside the vehicle. Cars and other automobiles are dangerous and need to be treated with respect and full attention. People that start to learn about driver’s education need to be aware, that one wrong move could kill a ton of people within a blink of an eye, not only that blink of an eye would destroy their life, but destroy the lives of many others.
A major step that can help reduce the number of deaths related to driving is limiting distractions. For example, when I was younger, and I had my first car, my mom taught me to throw my phone into the back seat of my car while I was driving, so I would not be distracted. For a few years I did that, and I had to rely on listening to my phone’s GPS while it was in the backseat of my car. Although it was inconvenient at the time, it kept me and a numerous amount of drivers and their passengers safe. As I grow older and cars change, I noticed that newer vehicles have huge touch screens in their dashboards, which can be very distracting for drivers to navigate when their main focus should be getting safely to their destination. There needs to be a technology in place that limits the size of these touch screens and how distracting they can be to their drivers. The point of a car is to not be able to take both hands off the wheel to fiddle with a touch screen. The point of a car is to help the driver get to their destination efficiently and without too much trouble.

I have been in several accidents when I was a child. However, in my second year of driving, I was driving to my college, when I was merging onto a road. I had to yield, due to an ambulance rushing past me and then an eighteen wheel truck speeding down and blaring his horn at me, telling me “Please don’t move!” . It was unsafe for me to get in. Unfortunately, the woman tailgating me originally on the highway was distracted, and so when she came onto the ramp to merge onto the same road I was on, she was speeding at over sixty miles per hour. The speed limit for the ramp was twenty-five miles per hour. She slammed into the back of my car, destroying the front of her car, and removing the bumper from mine. I had a concussion and had to be hospitalized. I was afraid to drive for weeks unless my sister or my one friend I always took home was with me. What I mostly remember is the woman crying about how she was going to be late for work, when I could barely keep my eyes open despite the officer doing his best to keep me alert until help arrived. When I was finally safe at the hospital and left alone for a bit to rest, I felt anger boiling in me. All she cared about was her job, not the fact that she put me in great danger.
Personally, I like to observe other drivers around me, when I am the passenger. It makes me practice how would I react in this situation, and really make me think. I do not drive when I am tired or in a negative emotional state. Wherever I have to go can wait for me, my safety and the safety of others is more important than needing to rush, or drive when I am not in a safe state of being. Although I do not drink alcohol at all because of my medication, before I had to start taking that medication, I made a pledge to never ever drink and drive. I watched families be torn apart by people that are selfish enough to drink and drive. I hear stories about little kids that are murdered due to those selfish actions, I cry for them. When I get behind the wheel, I think about those kids, and how they deserve to be here. So when I see my friends, if they mention to me, they’re going to a bar and will drive home, I tell them no, and I offer to take them home or to get a taxi or an Uber for them. I can not let anyone be at risk of dying over something so selfish. When my mother is driving, she is often distracted by her cellphone. She does not like when I am in the car with her, because I snatch her phone away and keep it in my pocket. I tell her she can have it back when we are somewhere safe. Although she is angry with me, it keeps her out of trouble and from almost getting into an accident with someone.

Let us remember that safe driving is not just about ourselves but also about protecting the lives and well-being of those around us, and together, we can create a safer and more responsible driving culture for everyone on the road.